


Child of Rapine

by lonerofthepack



Series: Mages of Aethyrmere [1]
Category: Fairy Tales - Fandom, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel - Fandom
Genre: Allusions to Child Abuse, Allusions to MPREG, Complete, F/M, M/M, Original Fiction, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 37
Words: 71,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair... A novel-length retelling of the classic tale, where evil isn't perhaps as wicked as at first it might appear, and secrets are the currency of the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the rough beginnings of a series, though each can be read as a stand-alone. I will be uploading a dictionary of terms, also, as I have pillaged Gaelic, mythology, and the worlds of magic and fantasy at will. Partially Beta'd.
> 
> This is an older work that I never finished posting. Sorry, and thanks to all who read it anyway!

_The world was darkness, and fear. His father was dragging him along with one massive hand gripping his arm, squeezing too tightly, walking too fast for his shorter legs to keep pace. Beneath his bare feet, roots reached out to trip him, and long branches whipped at his face and body, snagging at the ragged shirt he had lain down to sleep in. Occasionally he stumbled, only to be dragged back to his feet. His eyes, still heavy with exhaustion, were wide and bright with primal, instinctive terror. But he knew better than to complain._

_To complain was to anger Da, and that meant punishment._

_Questions swam sickly in his mind—what was happening? Why was Da doing this? Where were they going?—but he tamped them down. Da hated questions, hated him asking them._

_Hated, he knew, in the eerie, wordless way of children, him. For taking away Da's Màiri, for living, when his mother had had to die to give him his life. Moreover, for being strange, for causing the strangeness to come into their home, into their lives. Da hated the strangeness, raged that the strangeness was evil, and didn't care that he tried to stop the oddness from showing, or that it hurt, holding it inside so tightly so that none could escape…which, of course, made it explode away from him._

_And now, Da was dragging him along, through the darkness, away from the small, dingy cottage they lived in. Towards the fire, huge and malevolent, that had been built in the clearing just beyond the village, towards a dark mass of people who shouted and jeered and crowded too close. He wanted to cringe from both, wanted, most of all, for Da to turn around and take them both back to the cottage, even if it meant he was punished._

_But he struggled to keep up with Da, trotted uncomfortably beside the man who was his father, and forced down the betraying shudders that were fear, bone-deep and driven by instinct._

\--^-^-^--

Far to the North, in the Deibh Pigeán Mountains, where the trolls still sometimes roamed and the dragons still guarded their secret lairs, through the darkness of a forest that belonged to little more than demons and other dark ilk, a sorcerer and his steed bore their precious bundle. Blankets wrapped the child, hid all but her pale, fragile face, and corn-silk blond hair that framed that delicate oval.

She was no babe, not with seven winters past her, but she was very young to be in such arms as his. This sorcerer had a reputation, and like the forest he lived in, it was a dark one. A seducer of virgins; a practitioner of the darkest of arts; the master of the demons he dwelt amid. Perhaps, it was whispered, he was one of them himself, a Greater Demon who took human form. He looked the part, anyway.

The child he held remained blissfully unaware of these charges. She knew nothing of their destination, nothing of the events that had conspired against her to put her in his dubious clutches. She knew naught that he shooed curious darklings out of the way, nor did she move when he dismounted from his black courser, Muir, and placed her gently upon a pile of fresh hay while he made the horse comfortable. She did not wake as the stallion went, docile as a lamb, into his stall; didn't stir as the sorcerer released Muir from his leather harness, nor when he set the saddle and bridle in their appropriate place, and fed the loyal horse the oats he deserved for walking the night through which two burdens on his back.

The child, named an unlikely Rapunzel, merely turned her face to the sorcerer's shoulder when he lifted her again and went even more deeply to sleep as he carried her up a daunting number of stairs, their forms watched by two huge, glittering yellow eyes. She stirred for the first time at the rumble of a deep voice speaking in an unrecognizable language, woke more when strong arms set her down, this time on a bed.

Bright, crystalline blue eyes opened, blinking in the unexpected light. Though it was lightening outside with the dawn, the soft white light in the tower was artificial, fueled by magic. She spotted the dark shape that turned silently away, and moved without thinking, a sudden terror of being abandoned again making her swift, catching the sleeve of the person who was leaving.

"Wait! M—"

He paused, almost in spite of himself, staring down at the little girl who was now his responsibility. This mite of humanity, he marveled uncomfortably. This tiny child with the big, guileless eyes was the catalyst of thievery and deception.

"Where's Mama—or Da? Who are you? What's happened?"

Ah, he thought, questions. Awake not half a minute, and already she had asked the questions he would never be able to answer.

She stared up at the man. She didn't know him—they had had precious few guests at her parent's cottage, and she would have remembered this man. He looked strange, younger than her Da, but old too, older even than Grandfather. She had never seen eyes like his—an odd silvery color, like the knife Mama used to chop vegetables. His hair was strange too, long enough to fall over his shoulders and dark as pitch, when all she'd ever seen was her family's fair blond hair. He was a tall man, with a body that leaned towards slenderness, and long, beautiful hands.

She was too young, too naïve, to recognize a mage mark when she saw it—not from his face, where a mage's marks were less clear, and required a deeper kind of sight. Nevertheless, she knew this was no ordinary mortal.

"Have you seen Mama? She—she told me to stay in those bushes. And I meant to, but there was a demon, so I ran away, because you're supposed to run away from demons. Then I got really tired and fell asleep, and now—how will she find me? I have to go home—" Panic was beginning to tighten around her stomach again, as it had in the brush after her mother had rushed away and the demon with a wolf's body had begun to advance on her, red eyes gleaming wickedly. Her grip on his sleeve tightened, her entire body beginning to quake with terror. Hot tears were threatening to fall from her eyes; she fought them, refusing to behave like a baby in front of this tall stranger.

Something that could have been termed a conscience needled him at the sight of the stricken look in innocent eyes, knowing that he had caused it—her mother's flight, her sleepiness, the demon, and of course, the kidnapping itself.

"You—you are safe here," the sorcerer murmured awkwardly. The bloody contract was fulfilled, he had her. But what would he do with her now? He couldn't simply let her go. "Your parents know you are here in this tower…and—they've said that you should…come and live with me for a while, Rapunzel." It wasn't a lie. Not exactly.

A small, curious frown knitted graceful blond eyebrows as the tears began to disappear again. "How do you know my name, my lord? Mama said never to tell anyone I didn't know."

He blinked. "I am a—a friend. I was…I named you." To mark her as his, to claim her as payment due.

The little frown smoothed. "Oh." A smile bloomed, slowly, sweetly, like a flower opening in the sun. "Thank you!"

There was a creaking sensation, a bittersweet pain, where he might once have had a heart. No, he assured himself. Allowing such things for an unknown entity was a bad idea, up near the top of the list of bad ideas, right under needless regret. There would be no more of this bittersweet aching.

He ignored the pain. "You're welcome."


	2. Chapter 2

_"No, Da, no—" He didn't want to go any closer, didn't want to be surrounded by all of those people. He wanted to go home—wanted, most of all, to be safe._

_"Come on! Bring the little bastard!" one of the figures grabbed at his arm, yanked him._

_"No! No, Da, please!" he tried to shrink against his father, but the man pushed him away. "Da—"_

_"I should have guessed," Da said, looking at him oddly, while the figure of a man held him, rattling him when he tried to struggle away. "When you killed Màiri, I should have guessed you were a demon."_

_"No—Da—please, Da! I'll be good, please!" The stranger was dragging him toward the fire—the others were roaring their approval. And Da simply stood there. Fear choked him—the strangeness was moving again, inside him, fighting against the walls he had tried to close against it. And the fire was roaring higher—_

_"Give him something to be afraid of!" Da shouted suddenly. "He took my wife, brought evil to my home! Send him back to the Hell that spawned him!"_

_"Da—Da—no—"_

\--^-^-^--

"This is your room," the sorcerer said, opening a door. He had built this tower with magic and the aid of demons, with a child—this child—in mind. A prison it was, for the both of them, as she was far too young to be left alone, but as comfortable a prison as he could make it. The bed was large, and stuffed with goose down. A window facing east let in generous amounts of the early morning light, with a seat beneath it, so she might sit. Whitewashed walls made the room seem even greater than it was, and a fireplace would keep her warm during the winter.

He had been satisfied with it before her arrival, but now it seemed sadly barren. So little color, he thought. He had forgotten the color.

Rapunzel gave a little cry of wonder and twirled around the room—it was a larger room than any she'd seen before, and so high up—bouncing on the bed before rushing to the window to gaze out over the tops of the trees that made up the dark forest. Not so dark, he knew, from here. Instead, it was a sea of green, rippling out from the tower for miles. To the north, there were mountains, great stone giants capped with ice and snow. All of it was awash with the pink-gold of dawn, gilding it to perfection.

She turned to him, another one of those smiles lighting her face. "It's so pretty! Oh, my lord, thank you!"

"Yes, well," he muttered gruffly. As though he, personally, had built up the mountains for her, and caused the sun to rise. How can she be so happy? He wondered. She was being held captive by a stranger, away from all she knew. No battered lad was she, to blindly follow a man she barely knew. He turned away, baffled and discomforted, and paced to the small kitchen he'd built for himself.

Rapunzel followed him, intensely curious about the man who had given her the name she bore. Herbs hung from the ceiling beams, much as they had in the cottage she had grown up in, giving the tower the fresh, soothing scents of rosemary, lavender, and dried algrin, mingling with the sharper smells of thiac root and mint. There were other herbs and other smells that she didn't recognize—some that would heal, others that could do irreparable harm, still others that had no effect one way or another until mixed with something else as comparatively harmless.

The dark man moved around the small kitchen with the economy of movement of one accustomed to fixing his own meals. Within moments, he had a fire started and the kettle on, a teapot and two earthenware mugs awaiting the water's boiling. After another few moments, he had a simple meal of toasted bread and cooked eggs on the table. She watched him, fascinated. He was like nothing she had ever seen.

"Are you a demon, my lord?"

His head shot up, a startled look flashing briefly over his face, before its usual composure returned. "What? No. No, I'm not."

"Oh." She seemed almost disappointed. "I read that demons could take a human gui—guy—" she struggled with the word, frustration pulling her fine brows together.

"Guise."

She smiled; the quicksilver grin that seemed as easy to her as breathing. "That's it. Are you sure you aren't a demon, my lord?"

"Yes," he replied, amused almost despite himself. "Quite sure."

She cocked her fair head to the side, considering him with the focus, he thought, of a much older woman. "A magician, then." She said, naming the most exciting thing she could think of, that would clothe a man in long dark robes, and strange silver eyes.

"No." To what he was, a mere magician was paltry indeed, a purveyor in tricks and trifles who more often then not preyed on his audience's beliefs. Power that was more than mere belief flowed in his veins. But he was spared the trouble of explaining further by the shriek of the kettle. The sorcerer rose and poured the steaming water into a teapot; brought it and the cups to the butcher's block wooden table she sat at, did the same with the plates of bread and eggs.

Neither spoke again until the tea was in mugs before them, though the sorcerer could feel the glances Rapunzel threw at him as she doctored her tea with honey (enough to make him wince), and could sense the questions that darted around her mind. Because he knew something of the curiosities of a child, he tensed slightly at her next question.

"My lord," her head cocked to the side curiously, like a puppy, "…what's your name?" she sipped at the sweetened tea then, feeling very grown up. Mama had always given her warmed milk.

He blinked owlishly at her. That particular inquiry had slipped past unnoticed. How very strange.

"My name?"

Rapunzel nodded, the blonde hair that hung in a silky riot of tangles around her face swaying with the motion.

He could find no reason not to give her one of the many names he went by. Not his true name, of course, that would be foolish—names could be dangerous—but a name would hurt nothing. One of his usual aliases; Alasdair for the North, or Sìoltach, as he went by in the southern countries.

"Dórainn." Then he blinked again in surprise, and frowned. He had given her his name. His true name, the one only one other person on this plane of existence knew.

Why had he done that?

Her eyes widened in surprise at the name's meaning—a common enough word in these times, one of the few words of the Old Language that even she would know, but not as a name. "Sorrow? Why did my lord's Mama name him that?"

Another question he could never answer, one he would have avoided, if he could. "A whim, I suppose." He knew the true answer, of course, knew well that while he'd been named, at least in part, for her, his mother had had no say in his name. But nothing could induce him to tell this girl that—it was a dark and dirty tale, not something he would tell a child—and not something he liked remembering. He may dislike lying, and he didn't enjoy evasion particularly, either, but there was little he wouldn't give to get this precocious child away from things better left alone.

She frowned for a moment, and then seemed to accept it, for she nodded. He shifted uneasily. This was why he found children unnerving, he remembered. They saw too much, too easily, of what had taken years to bury away from prying eyes. They hadn't the social training that prevented such questions.

"Does My Lord Dórainn always cook?"

"Yes." He cautiously released a sigh of relief. Here was a topic he could be assured was safe.

"Why?"

"Do you see anyone else who would be cooking?" he asked, one eyebrow rising.

"You don't have a wife? Or a—" what was the word Mama had used? "Para..parame…"

"No," he replied. "I haven't a wife. Or a paramour." Gods, where had the child learned these words?

She frowned for a moment, considering this development—the few men she knew, other than Grandfather, had always had a wife, or whatever Mama's 'paramour' was—and then her face cleared.

It was really very remarkable, the sorcerer mused, how mobile her face was. He rather hoped it did not change as she grew older.

"I could cook," she offered slyly. Mama had been teaching her—it wasn't so hard.

"No." There was a sudden twinkle in the imp's eye that made him rather nervous. The notion of putting a blade in her hands, or some of the herbs that hung from the rafters had a frisson of cold flitting down his spine.

Now she puffed with indignation, pouting just a bit. "Why not?"

"If you did not set the tower on fire, you would cut yourself, or poison us both. I will cook." Perhaps not so safe a subject, after all, he thought.

"I've been learning from Mama," she said belligerently, unaware that the sorcerer stiffened in his seat at the mention of her mother, prepared for an onslaught of tears. He relaxed slowly when they failed to come.

"No."

Rapunzel pouted in earnest. "My lord could teach me. Then I would not set the tower on fire, or cut myself, or poison us."

He stared at her, completely perplexed by the odd creature he'd brought into his home. She showed no fear, didn't question his version of events, questionable as they were, and now she wanted to cook their meals?

Was this how Roarke had felt, bringing into his home a lad pitifully grateful, this strange discomforting impatience? This child wasn't even pitifully grateful, simply…baffling.

"We'll see," he muttered, and turned back to his tea. The teeth of guilt, for his own impatience and—of course—his actions, were beginning to nip at him and it wasn't a comfortable feeling.

A tickle at the back of his mind alerted him. Dórainn frowned, and rose with the silent grace of a large cat and strode to the window, pushing back the shutters. A bird, large and dark, soared toward his tower, a scroll bound to its leg. The frown turning to a black scowl, the sorcerer wrapped a scrap of leather around his wrist and reached out, giving the eagle a place to land. The bird alighted, huge talons sinking deeply into the leather protecting the sorcerer's wrist. He brought it inside gingerly.

Rapunzel stared, eyes wide and interested as Dórainn let the bird hop from his arm to the back of a chair, and fetched it a bit of dried meat for it, which it snatched and devoured in two ferocious gulps. He unknotted the tie of leather that held the scroll to the eagle's leg, and read it, his face going even grimmer. The child quelled a shiver as his pale eyes chilled.

"M-my lord?" she inquired. She met his gaze solidly when he looked up and flung the parchment into the fire. It exploded there, in a shower of green and purple sparks.

"I have to go out for a few hours. There is more bread and cheese and beef in the pantry if I cannot return by midday. Will you be alright by yourself?" There were spells enough to ensure she didn't harm herself, that would warn him the moment something threatened the tower, Cináed, if nothing else, and really, she wasn't so very young, but still…

She nodded, eyes still wide, gaze darting from the sorcerer to the eagle and back. Without another word, the man lifted a dark cloak from the chair he'd tossed it over and swept it on, before urging the bird of prey onto his arm again. He gave her one last searching look, was apparently satisfied with what he saw, and strode to the door.

"Wait!" She rushed past him, throwing herself between him and the exit. The bird on his arm shrieked, and flapped its powerful wings irritably so that the stiff feathers hit him around the head and face.

He blinked, and moved the bird out of range before directing his attention downward. "What are you doing?"

"You can't go out there!" she cried, her arms spread wide to block the door more completely.

He saw fear in her eyes, puzzled at it. "Why?"

"There might be demons! My lord, what if—" She stared up at him, unwilling to complete her sentence, lest it bring about her fears.

He stared back. She was…concerned about him. He could not remember the last time someone aside from Roarke (and really, the man hadn't worried about him for…years now, at least) had worried themselves about his welfare, but this girl was concerned for him. She even called him 'my lord', and met his gaze. Very few people, much less children, looked him in the eye.

"It's alright, Rapunzel. Nothing will happen to me," he assured her. "I can take care of myself, if the need arises."

She stared up at him for a second longer, unconvinced. "You promise?"

"Yes. I promise. You can let me out."

Rapunzel stepped reluctantly away from the door. "Yes, my lord."

He opened the door, letting in a chilly rush of air, and turned back to look at her one more time. "I'll be—"

She cut him off, launched herself forward again, startling the eagle, who glared mutinously at the sorcerer for the repeated insults, and wrapped her arms tightly around him, burying her face against his waist. "Be safe, my lord."

Without realizing it, his free hand went tentatively to her back. He was almost ashamed that his first thought had been that she was bolting toward freedom.

"I will. Stay in the tower, Rapunzel, and finish your breakfast. I'll return soon."

He went then, closing the door, and starting down the long, winding stairs of the tower, the only light emanating from his empty palm. There was his chosen guardian for the girl, a magnificent specimen of an ice dragon—as long as three horses from nose to tip of his long tail, as tall as two men, and all of it clad in brilliantly white scales—sprawled at the bottom, waiting.

"You descend so swiftly after taking the child up, Alasdair," the dragon remarked in his gravelly rumble of a voice. "Fleeing her so soon?"

"Nothing of the sort, Cináed," Dórainn replied unconcernedly, deliberately ignoring the mocking edge to his guardian's query. They had once, perhaps, been something like friends. No more, it seemed. And really, that should be no surprise, considering. "Murchadh wants for my advice."

"And you run to his side like a mongrel."

"If you like, Cináed," Dórainn allowed, having reached the bottom and preparing to leave. Taunts he could live with. "You have your orders."

The dragon snarled at him, pale flame flicking around his dagger-ish teeth. Dórainn paid him no mind, but left the tower. The stable was at the rear of the tower, hidden from malevolent eyes by the same protective magicks he placed on the tower.

The stallion inside whickered to see him again, pushing his nose against the sorcerer's chest in an effort for a treat. He raised a hand to the horse's dark head, stroking the satiny hair of his mount's head. Muir snorted at the sight of the eagle on his master's arm—he knew that it meant he would be obliged to leave his stable again, so soon after the night's work.

"I know," Dórainn murmured, sympathizing with the big horse, edging the bird onto a post to have the use of both hands while saddling and bridling the stallion. When the task was complete, he took both beasts into the early morning light, and swung up onto Muir. They made a sinister picture: the coal-dark horse, the dark-feathered eagle, and the black-haired man in his black robes.

"My lord! My lord!" Dórainn looked up, to see Rapunzel waving madly from the largest of the windows. He lifted a long, narrow-fingered hand in return, and turned Muir to the north.


	3. Chapter 3

_"Lad. Ye, lad, there on the ground." The voice was strange-sounding and loud. Demanding. Harsh, too, and far too like the voices of the dark figures to trust. The figures—the people— Maybe, maybe if he didn't react, simply held himself as still as he could, tried not to breathe in the soot and dirt that surrounded his face, the fire wouldn't come back. It wasn't hard to be still. He was so tired. He knew he was in trouble, in deep, deep trouble. All those people, and he had—he had—_

_"Stop yer fakin'. Ah kin tell yer alive—an' awake." He stiffened. A hand curled into the back of the threadbare shirt he wore, lifted him so that he hung there, feet dangling helplessly, nearly a full foot above the ground, the collar pressing to his throat. Panic was present, in a vague sort of way, but layered over by pure fatigue. A pair of black, black eyes studied him critically, up and down. "Aye, whell, yer a skinny one, are ye no'?"_

_"S-sir?"_

_The stranger was dressed oddly, all in long black robes with a warrior's trousers and tunic beneath, belted with intricately braided black leather. On his head, framing a narrow, sternly beautiful face, was a long shock of hair that, in the waxing predawn light, was the fiery red color of a copper necklace Dórainn had once seen, pulled back into a tail as simple as his belt was complicated. On the belt hung a long sword, sheathed, and another weapon, a long, slender blade that was clearly a battle weapon as well._

_"Kin ye stand, then, lad?" he demanded._

_"Y-yes. I—yes." Perhaps he could. His knees were shaking as his toes touched the ground, but perhaps he could make them behave. At least the strangeness was quiet, for once. But all those people—_

_"I—I didn't—" Fear was beginning to come forward, to fight its way out of fatigue._

_"Ye didna wot, lad?"_

_"D-didn't mean to—the—the people—"_

_The stranger's eyes hardened. "Ah didna think tha' ye did. Have ye a name, lad?"_

_"D-Dórainn. S-sir."_

_"Sorrow." It wasn't a question, but he nodded, and didn't dare drop his eyes from the black ones that went so hard. He didn't quite manage to quell the shudder this time. But the stranger raised no fist, nor withdrew, and those black eyes seemed to soften, perhaps, a bit._

_"Whell, tha's a'right, then. Come wit' me, lad. We'll git ye fixed oop, an' some food intae ye a'fore ye starve."_

_He followed._

\--^-^-^--

It wasn't a long journey, but tedious. It was a relief to swing down from Muir's broad back in the cobble-stoned courtyard. A stable lad hurried to take the stallion, gawking at the sorcerer with the King's wicked-looking bird perched easily on his shoulder. The mage's reputation preceded him, of course, but it was well-known that he sometimes aided the King, and so made him a figure of awe and fascination.

"Untack him, and give him a bit of hay," Dórainn instructed him, and handed him a silver kenu for his trouble. The youngster's eyes widened at the sorcerer's generosity, and nodded feverishly, leading Muir away.

The sorcerer strode into the fort, the dark cloth of his cloak sweeping behind him. The eagle on his shoulder opened its wings restlessly, framing, for one brief second, Dórainn's head.

Neither man nor bird was aware of the aura of control that surrounded them, one that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with nature. It was there, the subtle power, in the grimness of the sorcerer's craggy face, in the way both predators held their bodies, poised and alert. Neither needed to be aware of that aura. The servants going about their duties saw it, respected it, and moved out of their path with alacrity.

\--^-^-^--

"Murchadh," Dórainn addressed the king by name when he had reached the monarch's study.

The ruler looked up from the parchment immediately, and put it down. "Alaestir," he returned, mangling the name as he always did with his dialect, getting to his feet. "You came."

"Yes, I came," Dórainn replied. He had no great love for this man, but a contract of sorts. Boys of twenty, he knew now, should never be allowed their own heads. Not when it came to binding contracts, and other potentially life-altering decisions. So he had himself to blame for his irritation.

"Your missive was…unsettling." Annoying, and ill-timed.

"My thanks for your swiftness. I am in need of your aid."

Dórainn remained still, not bothering to grace such an obvious statement with an answer.

"Someone," the king continued, rather more hurriedly, gesturing the sorcerer into a chair, "has been leaking secrets to my enemies."

"What makes you think so?" Dórainn asked, taking the seat after he had removed the eagle from his shoulder and onto its stand by the King's desk. He said nothing about the stupidity of using so fine and proud a bird like a pigeon, or a pet—he had no interest in sitting through another long-winded explanation of how the bird could be sent to multiple locations with great speed, unlike its non-predatory cousins, and how Murchadh preferred the image that went with an eagle delivering his most urgent post.

"And what do you want me to do about it? I want nothing to do with your politics, Murchadh." Yet here he was. Again.

This, the sorcerer knew, was going to be a long, unnecessary discussion. The man was old—once, perhaps, he'd been a great ruler—now he was a paranoid old fool, jumping at shadows and forcing a war that no one wanted, or had much interest in continuing. He settled more comfortably in the chair, and prepared to listen.

It was deep dusk when he finally got back to his tower, full dark by the time Muir was stabled and happy. Cináed nearly flamed him as he walked in, sprawling like some huge, brilliantly white, spiteful housecat. They'd exchanged what passed as greetings, and Dórainn had started up the long, winding set of stairs.

He was tired, less from the ride than from Murchadh's paranoia. If only the blasted man would simply put an end to the foolish war with Seòbhrach Rubha! Then the damn contract would be done, and Dórainn would not be at the King's beck and call.

Which, Dórainn had resigned himself to knowing, would never happen, not as long as Murchadh and King Rìoghainn were in charge of their respective countries. Both were old, with the long memories of the elderly, and both were proud as Southern peacocks with their grand tails fanned. But where Murchadh was swiftly going senile, Rìoghainn was still as sharp as a blade. But that didn't bear thinking about.

\--^-^-^--

He wanted nothing more than tea and a meal, then bed. He opened the door, and found himself knocked back a step by a small blond blur. He caught her against him, steadying them both against the doorframe.

"Rapunzel?"

"You were gone so long," she said into his waist, her voice thick with what sounded like tears. "I thought—" Visions of demons, like the wolf that had chased her, or the bandits her grandfather had complained of, had danced maliciously through her head. And she liked this man, quiet and kind, with the loving ease of the innocent young.

The prickling needles of guilt struck again. "I'm sorry." He carefully detached the girl-child, brought her back into the room and closed the door.

Candles had been lit—the magic, flameless domes he had made to replace them were still dark. There was a fire spluttering its way toward an early death in the hearth, built inexpertly.

He frowned. He'd have to fix the lamps so she could work them, and teach Rapunzel how to build a proper fire. For the moment, he used magic. Candles flickered out with a short gesture, and the globes burst alive, to pour clean white light into the tower. Another brief motion toward the fire had it behaving properly, no longer smothering under its own weight.

Rapunzel watched with wide eyes, but she said nothing. The sorcerer walked into the area of the tower that acted as their kitchen, put on water for tea. He was tired, and his head ached abominably. He looked around his home again, noticed now that there were a few books stacked on the table, one of them open.

The girl saw where his eye had wandered, remembered, abruptly, the lessons her mother had given her about touching another's things. "I'm sorry—I shouldn't have touched your books, not without asking, and—"

"I don't mind," he told her absently, vaguely amazed that one so young and of peasant heritage could read at all, crossing to the table and lifting one of the tomes to look at the title. His eyebrows rose. It was a thick, particularly monotonous, leather-bound history of the theory of arcane symbols that must weight nearly as much as she did. A gift, if he wasn't mistaken, from a thick, particularly monotonous colleague of Roarke's who'd passed on some ten years before. He hadn't used it in nearly as long.

"Heavy reading, gràdhag," he murmured, replacing it on the stack. The other books were of the same ilk. He glanced at the dark sky through the window, and then at Rapunzel. There was fatigue in her face—drooping eyelids, glazed eyes. He didn't, however, see boredom. "I'm amazed you haven't yet fallen asleep. Surely you're tired?"

A frown knit her brow. "Am not." There was more than a hint of petulance in her voice.

"Then you may read in your room, because I am," he told her gently, some primal instinct kicking in and saving him from a battle with the child. "Let's have you settled."

"Yes, my lord." She slipped down, off the chair, appeased by his admission to weariness.

He followed her, leaned against the doorway of her room as she pushed down the covers of her bed. Then she stopped, and looked at him expectantly.

"What's the matter?"

"I don't have a nightie, my lord," she said, looking up at him.

He stared. "A what?"

"A nightie. A nightgown?" Now she looked uncertain.

"You need a nightgown?"

She nodded empathically. A nightgown.

Inspiration struck.

"Wait here." He strode across the tower to another, far smaller set of stairs that led to his chamber. He went up them, and dug through a chest to fetch a shirt for her, to act as a nightgown.

What a fool he was, he thought, finding what he wanted, not to have thought of this. Easily fixed, this mistake, but it galled him, to realize how woefully unprepared he was. She would need other clothes as well—she had only what she wore. Toys, too, and books for lessons.

Friends. The thought struck a jarring blow, stopping him dead just outside Rapunzel's door. Toys, and clothing—most he could create for her, or purchase in the markets. Lessons, he could give her, but what of peers, playmates? And he was a mage, an unmarried mage—he wasn't fit to raise a child, much less a female one. What did he know of a girl-child's moods or needs?

A dark terror built inside him, sudden and disturbingly familiar to him, stealing his breath and hazing his vision. What on earth had he gotten himself into? He, who'd been taken into his own master's home at the same age as she was now, knew well the damage that could be done to a child in a sorcerer's care, and what damage a child could do in a mage's home—what business did he have involving Rapunzel? Was it truly too late to simply return the child to her parents, let her believe it was all some strange dream, and disappear again? It would be the kindest thing to do, the noblest.

"—Dórainn? My lord?"

He blinked back the miasma of panic to see Rapunzel staring up at him. She smiled tentatively at him. Wordlessly, he offered her the shirt he'd gone to fetch, moving more jerkily than was his custom. She took it shyly, the smile no less sweet for the unexpected coyness.

"Will you tuck me in?"

"Ahh…of course," he found himself agreeing, nodding helplessly. "Go get ready for bed, and I'll, ah, I'll be in."

Damnit, he wasn't kind, or noble, Dórainn thought, leaning back against the wall and letting his head fall back against it with a dull thud. But there was no telling what the reaction of the townspeople would be—they could accept her back with open arms and happy tears, or they could attempt to eradicate the demons they might assume he'd placed inside her, which would mean Rapunzel would be burned at the stake as a host—at best. He shuddered violently at the thought, forced away memories better left undisturbed.

Moreover, there was the reason he had taken her in the first place to consider. Fool, not to have lived and let live.

She was staying, then, he decided, straightening again, and crossing to the fireplace were the kettle had finally begun to shriek. He left the tea to steep, and returned to her door, rapped. She was staying, at least for now.

"Come in, my lord," she said, and smiled hugely at him from where she sat up in the huge bed, one of the tomes on her lap. His shirt bagged on her, the sleeves insisting on slipping down to tangle her hands, the collar listing ever so slightly to the left, and drooping around her small shoulders. If she were to stand in it, he had no doubt it would be long enough to act as a dress for her.

He did as she bid, moving into the room. She watched him expectantly, until he finally went over to her and smoothed the covers in a brief, painfully awkward way. Neither Da nor Roarke had ever done this—Da wouldn't have done it, because he'd been unworthy of affection in his father's eyes, and Roarke, if even he'd had thought of it, wouldn't have, because he'd never have been able to bear it. And they were the two parents he'd ever come into contact with, in his formative years.

"Fair dreams, gràdhag," he murmured, and went to rise.

"Wait! You forgot the spell!" she cried, appalled that an adult could be so absentminded.

He blinked down at her. "What spell?"

She waved him down again, and once he had complied, pressed a swift kiss to his clean-shaven cheek. Astonishment held him there a minute, trying to make sense of it.

"Now, you do it too," she instructed when he didn't move to complete the gesture. "Don't you know the spell?"

"No, I didn't know the spell," he said, and brushed his lips once against her forehead before standing straight.

"Didn't your Mama teach you?" she asked, a puzzled frown beginning to form on her face. "My Mama taught me."

"No, Rapunzel, she didn't teach me."

Her face fell. "But—all Mamas should teach the spell. That's what Da said."

"Well," Dórainn said, gently putting a hand on her head and ruffling the pale gold there—why he did, he couldn't say, but something was called for, "you taught me, didn't you? So all's well."

"I guess," she allowed, looking dubious.

"Goodnight, Rapunzel."

She smiled again, an odd little smile he didn't quite understand. "Goodnight, my lord."

When he looked back, she was opening the ponderous book on her lap to a point nearly a quarter of the way through. He blinked at it, and resolved not to let this strange girl-child's actions surprise him anymore.

His tea was very strong, having been left alone for several minutes, but he sipped it anyway, letting the rather bitter brew slide down his throat. He needed to sleep—it had been nearly a sennight, what with finishing the fine points of the tower, furnishing it and all of the other details. And he would, but not just yet. For the moment, his thoughts were too jumbled for sleep.

There were, of course, other alternatives to keeping Rapunzel with him. He could give her to another family somewhere far away from her old village. He could hand her over to one of the religious homes that took orphans and other unwanted children. There were options.

But…

Bah! To hell with his insecurities, Dórainn abruptly thought. He, for some reason known not even to himself, wanted her here, with him. He could—and would!—learn from prior mistakes. Rapunzel wouldn't suffer for his interference, not if he could help it.

A thought struck him, making him frown at the fire he watched without seeing.

Rapunzel's parents.

Fools, they were, it was true. Still, they must love her, for who could not? She was bright, and beautiful, and obviously very intelligent. Perhaps the terror of having actually lost her for a day would be sufficient. A chance to redeem themselves was called for. It would negate the entire issue of his keeping her, after all, if they came. He mightn't be able to take her back, and give her to them, but they, they could come and claim her. She could go back with them, safe and sound, if they came and got her. Besides, they certainly couldn't do a worse job of raising her than he. What experience had he, after all, that wouldn't scar her young mind in ways no child should be touched? They had two other children, and certainly, their flight indicated that they cared for their eldest child.

The sorcerer heaved a sigh, and drained his tea. He padded to his young prisoner's room, peered in. She was, as he had suspected, asleep. Dórainn's lip twitched into what he didn't realize was a warm smile as he padded in. The bitter-sweetness was back, just a little, but this time, it felt almost good. Life returning to a long-dead limb. He lifted the book off her lap and set it on the bedside table. Freed from its weight, Rapunzel immediately moved to a more comfortable position, still sound asleep. He pulled the covers up to her chin, and made all but one of the magic lamps extinguish. The last he left, dimming it to a gentle glow—children, he'd heard, didn't like the dark. He never had, particularly. He banked the small fire that hissed and crackled warmly in the grate, and closed the door as he left.

He was tired, yes, but there was one more thing that needed to be done tonight. He swept the dark cloak back on, and started, for the second time, down the stairs.

Pale cat's-eyes slitted open. "Leaving again, are you?"

"Yes."

"Hmm…" The dragon blinked at him slowly, and lazily blocked the exit with his tail. Dórainn paused and looked over.

"You would do well, Cináed, to move," the sorcerer said in a deceptively calm voice. He may have regretted the loss of camaraderie, but he would not tolerate intimidation from one in his employ. Certainly, there was enough power in his thin body to tangle with a dragon, even this one, and come out alive.

"Indeed? What will you do, Alasdair—I am your guard, remember?"

"I can find another."

"Ahh," the dragon rumbled. "But could you find another soon enough to keep the child safe? I would not go easily, you know." And they both knew that the power they expended with their fighting would bring the demons swarming, always looking for a fresh meal. Rapunzel, unguarded, would make for perfect prey.

"I will not release you now, Cináed," Dórainn replied, the fatigue finally seeping into his voice as he recognized the game the dragon sought to play with him. "Wait until her parents come for her, then you and I shall finish this properly."

Still, the dragon did not move. "Vow it," Cináed's cat-eyes glittered in the gloom of the base of the tower. "I want you to promise that you will not bind me here forever."

"That, I will promise to," Dórainn replied. "I've no wish to strand you. When a stranger comes and says they are here for Rapunzel, you may go and do as you wish—except," he added, silvery eyes narrowing, "harm her or her parents, of course."

"I will hold you to that," Cináed said, moving his long, serpentine tail away from the tower's exit.

"I know," the sorcerer said. "I'll be back shortly."

Pale, glittering yellow eyes watched him go.


	4. Chapter 4

_The dragon was huge, and brilliantly white. Magnificent, really, and deadly dangerous. Cleverer by far than most men, faster and stronger and bigger than three sturdy Northern ponies, this was a predator to be feared by all. He had tumbled over backwards before he’d realized the end of its tail—as thick around as his waist, and powerful enough to snap him in two with no more effort than killing a bug—had wrapped around to surround him. The very tip of it, tapered to a point, brushed against his arm as it slid past._

_“So you’re Roarke’s young apprentice,” the dragon rumbled, staying the release of the power that_ _Dórainn had intended to attempt to free himself with by uttering his mage master’s name._

_“Perhaps,” Dórainn allowed, grey eyes narrowed. Older now by five years, he had picked up some of his mage guide’s habit toward reticence, and coupled it with his own. The result was he rarely spoke more than was absolutely necessary. Nor had he much faith in others’ apparent goodwill. “What is it to you?”_

_“I’ve no enmity towards your master, nor towards you, so enough of that, mageling. I’ve not come to harm you, but to meet you, and perhaps quiet my own curiosity.” Large yellow eyes swept over him, wondered briefly if Roarke ever fed the boy._

_Slowly, the mage-in-training let the magic drain away, back to its resting place deep inside him, and some his tension went with it. Some curiosity rose, cautiously, to replace it. “I have questions.”_

_“Of course you do.”_

 

-0-0-0-

 

He did not take Muir—he had no need when he wasn’t burdened with the limp body of a seven-year-old, and the horse deserved his rest. The village her parents lived in was not far, only a few miles, and he knew the forest well. The wind howled overhead, but the sky was clear, and it was not particularly cold. Demons watched from a respectful distance, having recognized a stronger predator than themselves, a patron that occasionally sought their services and _always_ paid in full, their eyes gleaming red and gold and green in the darkness. A few curious darklings, with their almost nonexistent forms and lack of fear, circled him, probing gently against his aura for any weakness, until he waved them away.

The cottage Rapunzel had  most recently inhabited was small, but well built. Dórainn did not bother to knock—it would give them all that much more time to slam the door in his face. Instead, he expended a bit of magic, and it snapped open before him.

He stepped in, and was met with the horrified faces of Rapunzel’s family. Her mother gasped, her blue eyes darting from him to her other children, as though wondering if she would be able to make it across the room faster than he could. Her father bolted upright from his seat, knocking over the chair in his haste, his face graying. Rapunzel’s grandfather seized his cane, and might have actually attacked Dórainn if he had been able to walk the few feet that stood between them.

“You! Demon Mage—what do _you_ want, _Ban-bhuidseach_? Haven’t you done enough evil already?” the old man snarled, his thin face contorting with rage and pain. Rapunzel had been his first grandchild, his darling with her grandmother’s eyes.

“Father!” the young woman cried quietly, begging him to be silent.

Dórainn simply watched them with cold eyes.

“Please,” the younger of the two men said, his eyes also darting from his family to the sorcerer, “please, we don’t want any more trouble—”

“I’ve come to extend a chance to you,” Dórainn said finally, cutting him off. The room fell silent. “One last chance, to prove you have any honor at all, and that you care for Rapunzel.”

The woman made a choking noise, which might have been a sob. Dórainn barely spared her a glance.

“If you love your child, you must come to claim her. There is a tower, Bàn Snìomhán, straight to the north, through the forest. She is there,” the sorcerer told them in a clear, cold voice. “You will need no weapons—anyone might make it through if they know her name, regardless of strength or skill. The demons will not bother you, nor the guardian at the bottom of the tower. The only requirement is the courage to come.”

He looked at her parents’ faces, wondered how they could have given her up in the first place; traded the promise of her for a few stolen fistfuls of herbs, and, when it came to the final stand, abandoned her to him when he’d come to claim her. “If you come, I will return your daughter to you.”

The walk back to the tower seemed shorter, somehow, than had the walk to the cottage. Cináed said nothing as he passed, but watched as he climbed the stairs for the third time that day. Rapunzel didn’t run to greet him this time, she slept as peacefully as when he’d left. There was no more to do but to collapse into bed for some much needed sleep.

And to pray that the dreams wouldn’t come tonight.

 

-0-0-0-

 

“You said you wanted to learn to cook,” he said it abruptly, sipping his tea, when she came out of her room the next morning. Her eyes grew wide with anticipation and what he was uncomfortably sure was idolization. _Damn it._

“Really, my lord? You mean it?”

He tilted his head toward the other seat at the table, and placed a cup of tea before her. “You will find, Rapunzel, that I very rarely say what I do not mean. Yes,” he finally allowed, seeing that the anticipation in her animated face went undimmed. He rather doubted anyone could hold long under the bright light of her excitement. “Yes, I will teach you to cook.”


	5. Chapter 5

He taught her many things—the uses of the herbs he hung in his kitchen, the way to turn a simple spell, to read and write and do arithmetic. He trained her in etiquette, languages, and history, told her stories about faraway lands and famous people who had come before them. Occasionally he would take her down, past the dragon and out of the tower, to give her a riding lesson on the back of Muir, or to study an interesting bit of flora or fauna in the forest. She showed promise in drawing that had steadily improved, and he’d supplied her with all the paper, charcoal, and paints she could ever want. One day, he’d even brought home a small ball of grey fluff, bedraggled and soaked, and they had named the cat Kier.

Like a flower, Rapunzel grew. Seven summers turned to eight, and nine, and ten, until it had been nearly ten years since the sorcerer had taken Rapunzel from her family and brought her to the tower in the dark forest. She became beautiful as she grew. Her golden braid grew long, until Dórainn put a spell on it, and used it to scale the tower he had built; allowing the dragon some semblance of the privacy he was used to.

They never discussed her family, or their failure to come for her—not since the evening long, long ago when she had burst into painful tears. The sorcerer had pulled her up into his lap and rocked her like the child she had been, murmuring that he was sorry and stroking her hair. And she never told him that she knew of the nightmares he occasionally woke gasping to, with the muffled words and pleas that sometimes roused her. Nor did she ask about the scars she had seen, on one such dark night when she had gathered her courage to go to him, knitting his back. She had known from her studies what the dark, swirling markings that laced from his arms to past where the blankets had covered, were: a master mage’s marks, signs of power, tattooed into his body over scars.

 

-8-8-8-

_He received his mage marks easily enough. It had, perhaps, unnerved Roarke more to give them than it unnerved him to receive them, the steady prick, prick, prick of the needle. Neither of them, though, had said anything about it, simply done what was necessary. The tiny needle had trailed through the winding lines and pinprick circles that had adorned every master mage since the practice of magic had begun. Marks for Sight, for wisdom, for power. Blood that was shed willingly, for control, and for the knowledge that would lead to it, had been wiped away carefully, and replaced with ink. Roarke had finished it, had spoken the last of the words from the Old Language, and sat back. It had taken the length of the longest night to complete them, longer still for the remembrance of the pricks to fade. But the marks would remain as starkly black in his skin as coal, not fade with age, as did the tattoos sailors and mercenaries placed in their skin. That was the reminder of magic, the blessing and curse of it, that would remain with him for as long as he lived. Neither of them would speak about the power shared and learned that night. Neither of them would have to._

-8-8-8-

 

He had trapped himself, Dórainn mused, watching her. He was always watching her, it seemed. Watching her, keeping and trapping her.

Lusting for her.

Not that she noticed. No, Rapunzel never noticed, or if she did, she had no notion of why he watched her for hours. That he knew without doubt. And he was grateful for it, beyond his ability to describe. Already he despised himself for the keeping, but the watching and the wanting were the far side of enough. He wasn’t at all sure he could stand it if she despised him too.

Nevertheless, she was beautiful, and in a twisted sort of way, his. So he watched her, endlessly, and chained himself more and more tightly to the flower he had bound to his home through circumstance, with the dragon that guarded her from the world outside, by her own _hair_ , just one more lock, to keep her with him.

He turned away for now, pretending that he could concentrate on the scroll before him, and that the blasted claws of guilt and self-loathing weren’t trying to rip down his walls, to get to the core of him where it would do the most damage. Strange, how quickly he had learned to deal with guilt—before Rapunzel, he’d so rarely let himself dwell on the feeling, it might not have existed for him at all. Another missive from Murchadh was his excuse, along with the other scrolls or scraps of paper from several of the other patrons he had so foolishly made himself available to. There was unease brewing among the peasants, so their masters were all anxious to hear from him—some for advice, some for other favors more easily accomplished by a mage-for-hire. But he could not bring himself to care about the petty wants and summons.

Rapunzel watched, too. She watched him as he sat there at his desk, the cat perched beside him as though guarding him while he poured over the scrolls, watched as he shoved his long-fingered hands through his hair, disrupting the silky-looking black strands from the tie he used to tame them. There was the slightest hint of silver at his temples, and perhaps a few more lines around his eyes, but he was still her Dórainn, as awe-inspiring and wonderful as when she had first seen him—better now, for the humanness she had seen and grown up with.

So she watched him covertly, and worried at the bleakness she occasionally caught lurking in his silver eyes, oftener now than before.

“My lord,” she murmured, and placed a fresh mug of tea on his desk. He looked up, as though she were both a problem and a solution, an almost wistful expression in his eyes. Then he blinked, and smiled, the little smile that tugged one corner of his mouth slightly higher than the other, and warmed the silver of his gaze to smoke. The wistfulness disappeared as though it had never been.

“Thank you, _bròineán_.” His dear, he called her. “Are you going to bed?”

“Yes.” She kissed his cheek and gave the cat a swift stroke, as she always did, and he brushed his lips to her brow, completing the quick, tender gesture.

“Fair dreams, Rapunzel,” he murmured, and let her smile warm him as she turned and walked to her room. Oh, he knew he was years too old for her, knew that the absolute _last_ person he wanted for her was himself. And he also knew that she viewed him, at best, as a father figure of sorts. And shouldn’t that keep him from feeling these things at all, the bond of father-figure to stolen daughter that had formed between them? Shouldn’t that had quelled any lust or sexual love he might ever have felt for her? He was no depraved child-lover, or he hadn’t been before.

Dórainn slumped back in his chair and let his eyes close. The cat meowed, butted his head against him, so he stroked it absentmindedly. His thoughts were wandering down a familiar path—one that led only to the beast that was guilt, and to pain—so he snatched them back, threw shut the gate that blocked that evil course. Then he chuckled humorlessly to himself, and brought his hands up to cover his eyes, as though to keep tears from trickling out, or to tame the roar of a headache. Disgusted by the mage’s lack of attention, Kier jumped down to stalk after Rapunzel. Dórainn barely noticed.

Yes, he was good at this—fleeing from the pain, barricading himself far from guilt. They were growing stronger, though, had been growing like demons since he had reached the decision to keep Rapunzel for himself. His barricades and walls would, he imagined, come crashing down around him soon enough, but for now, he would shore up his protections and pray that when it came, he could do what needed to be done.

He would let himself look at the flower—he would not be able to stop himself. But he would not touch, no.

No, no, no, touching was off-limits, out-of-bounds. It didn’t matter that the desire, the _need_ was nearly as bad as the guilt; that it ate freely away at him. He was Rapunzel’s less-than father, was her guardian and jailer. He could, would have to, pretend that his love for her was at most no more and no less than that of a parent’s for his child.

Dórainn stood, forced himself out of the chair, and went to the wide window that was the only other entrance to the tower besides the dragon-guarded stairs. Cool air flowed around him, but it didn’t carry away the darkness of the feelings inside him. He turned away, disgusted by the moment of whimsy he’d allowed—as though a mere breeze would help him!—and strode to his own room, dimming the lamps and banking the fire with a single slashing movement of one hand.


	6. Chapter 6

_Fire, bright and hot, and far too close—panic flitted through his mind, pounded with his heart, flowed through him like the magic he could not yet control. And his father’s voice, thundering in time with the horrid crescendo of the others. Until the roaring in his ears drowned it out, until power, mostly dormant ‘til now, swept through him like a riptide. And light flashed out of him, chasing the darkness, bringing the thundering to high, thin screams that were somehow worse. Then the full feeling was gone, the power draining out of him. There was a sensation of falling, a scent of scorched ground searing his nostrils. The knowledge that the power had twisted itself, had stolen the lives of two score people, lingered in the back of his mind, quietly mocking, quietly jeering as the darkness, more all-consuming this time, crept upon him, and tears slid willfully down his cheeks._

-8-8-8-

 

“I’m heading out,” he told her, standing and carrying his empty mug and plate to the preparation table, and cleaned them with a flick of power so that Rapunzel would not have to. “I’ll be back around noon, if Murchadh doesn’t hold me too long. By suppertime, at the latest. Do you need anything while I’m out?”

“No, I’m fine,” Rapunzel replied, and went with him to the large window. “Be safe, my lord.”

“I will,” he promised, and scooped up the end of her long braid. It lengthened in his hand, became impervious to weight. He brushed a kiss of farewell across her brow, received the brush of her lips on his cheek.

Then he was gone, out the window. She looked down as he landed, and waved. The sorcerer lifted his hand in return, and strode to the stable where Muir lived. She waited there and watched until he had disappeared deep into the forest.

Neither sorcerer nor girl knew that another watched, fascinated. Therefore, when the sorcerer was out of sight, the watcher took his chance; he ran to the rope of hair, and began to climb.

Rapunzel, ready to begin the work she planned to do this morning—a pencil study of the various magical apparatus that lay around the tower, with a catalog of their uses—moved to draw up her hair. She froze as a gloved hand hooked over the side of the window, and a head that could not belong to Dórainn—it was tawny-gold, not silver-flecked black—appeared, terror holding her stock-still. Kier, sprawled regally in the sunlight let in, stirred himself to look up—and hissed viciously as he was obliged to scramble out of the way. Her eyes grew wide as the man tumbled inelegantly into the tower, rolling to his feet with a gangly sort of grace.

He came up with wide eyes, as startled as she. It quickly turned to a bright smile. “I’m sorry, Lady, I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

He looked around with interest. “Is this your tower?” he asked earnestly, never questioning his welcome. “I’ve seen it before, when I was out riding, but I never realized anyone lived here.”

She blinked at him, not quite certain how to deal with this gregarious stranger. “Excuse me, but—who are you?”

He cocked his head at her in surprise, his brown eyes lighting. “Oh! I’m Caoin! Prince Caoin.” His grin went sheepish. “I’m sorry, I should have said.”

“No, it’s alright,” Rapunzel told him hesitantly. “I’m Rapunzel. This tower is Bàn Snìomhán.” There was a long pause, then, “Would you, ah, like some tea?” Should she call him Majesty? She wondered. He hadn’t said, didn’t seem to care one way or another.

“Yes, please.”

Pleased to be doing something other than standing awkwardly at the casement, she moved to the kitchen, going through the familiar motions of making a cup of tea. “Do you take milk, honey?”

“Milk, no honey. Thank you. Do you live here all by yourself?” She didn’t—he had watched the man swing down on the same rope he himself had climbed, but Caoin inquired all the same to avoid the awkwardness of confessing he had watched, had invaded without thought for another’s privacy. He wandered the room, looking at the various tools Dórainn used. He cared little for the practical side of sorcery, but enjoyed the illusions of it, the play of power and control. That this girl, younger even than he, might grasp the working of such illusions fascinated him.

She set a saucer of milk on the floor, hoping to lure the cat from where he hid beneath one of the bookcases. He glowered at her, his yellow eyes baleful.

“No, I live here with my lord, and my cat, Kier.”

“A lord? Which lord?” He knew of none who lived in a tower hidden deep in the Dark Forrest. Perhaps this was a separate household, then, she one of the nobles of his court’s lights-o-love. He frowned a bit. As impetuous as he was, he would not lower himself to court another’s mistress away. Or maybe, he thought, brightening again, she was this lord’s daughter or ward.

“Well, no, he’s actually sorcerer.”

“Why do you live with him? Are you related?” A sorcerer? His father’s mage lived in his own private quarters at Seòbhrach Rubha, not here. Moreover, Caoin was sure he had no living relatives, certainly no wards. He could think of few other magic-crafters who warranted the title sorcerer in this area.

“No, but he raised me.” She could see his pale brows furrow in thought. Then he shrugged, and finished his tea. He stood with a smile.

“That was great! Thank you for the tea, but I need to go now, or my servants will wonder what’s happened to me. May I see you tomorrow?”

“Ah…I suppose?”

“Wonderful!” he said with a smile that showed straight white teeth. He lifted her hand to his lips, deposited a courtly kiss upon it. “Are there stairs I might use to descend, then?”

Rapunzel shook her head. “There are stairs, but you shouldn’t use them.”

“Why not?” Caoin asked, surprised, still holding her hand in his.

“A dragon lives at the bottom of the stairs, to guard the tower.” Dórainn had told her, a long time ago, that the dragon would not harm her, nor the one with the ‘key’— the key that only those who needed to know already had. And she, of course, had seen the dragon—huge and as white as the snow in the mountains—though she had only ever seen him as he slept, or at least lay quietly. Awake and watchful, as he’d be by this time of day, he was surely even more magnificent. And infinitely more dangerous to any intruder.

Caoin was shocked, and very intrigued. “A _dragon?_ ” Was this mage barking mad? Who would trust a dragon to guard so lovely a lass? For that matter, who would keep her locked in a tower, trapped by a dragon?

_I will help her_ , he vowed to himself. _This mage has no right to keep her imprisoned without good reason_.

“I will go down the way I came up, then. Where’s the rope?”

Rapunzel smiled at him, amused by this strange, bright young man. “My hair is the rope. Here, I’ll show you.” She went to the window, threw it out. Caoin’s brown eyes widened as the braid grew long enough to reach the ground.

“Magic!”

Rapunzel nodded. “Yes. It’s stronger than rope.”

He heaved himself onto the windowsill, smiled at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lady Rapunzel.”

Then he was gone.


	7. Chapter 7

_“Se’ tha’ on fire.”_

_“Sir?” He stared up at the man—at Roarke, as he was to be called. The house stood quietly, no longer seeming like the dark, oppressive cage he’d known. It was simply a house, now._

_“Whell, go on, then. Jist light it.” Roarke stood quietly beside him, and watched the boy he’d taken as student. He was, the mage decided, healing nicely. At least physically._

_“I—I’m not supposed to let the—the strangeness out.”_

_“Naught strange aboot’t, lad. Best tae let’t oot, anahow.” His protégé’s grey eyes lifted, studied him gravely, as though to see how hard he would hit when the magic came flowing out. Roarke couldn’t say he particularly cared to be studied in such a manner._

_But the boy turned his gaze back to the house, considering it for a moment._

_With a subtle roar, the house went up in flames hot enough to have melted a hoar dragon’s ice. They felt the backwash of heat from where they stood, an easy hundred yards away._

_“Aye, lad,” Roarke had said, placing a hand very lightly on his apprentice’s thin shoulder, ignoring the boy’s reactionary flinch. “Ye’ll do.”_

 

-8-8-8-

 

Dórainn greeted her with a package, when he entered the tower at twilight. A present, he said, and grinned. His real smiles, not the strange little quirk his mouth sometimes took on, were wonderful—he was a dour man, after all, not much given to great displays of emotion—but his grins, with their cheerful warmth and easy goodwill, were so much more precious for their rarity.

“Open it,” he instructed, going to the kitchen area. It was a night for celebration—Murchadh had died peacefully and painlessly in his sleep the night before, and his son, Caorainn, wanted peace with Seòbhrach Rubha. He was free of Murchadh’s foolishness, finally. Yes, it was a night for celebrating.

“My lord!” She had opened the package, discovered the frock of white, with the lovely flowers embroidered on it. It would, he knew, look beautiful on her. He had seen it, there in the marketplace, and thought of her. He wanted to see it on her, see her eyes light with happiness.

“It’s so pretty,” she exclaimed. She was already smiling, her eyes already lit, when she went to him, hugged him with cheerful abandon. “Thank you!”

“ _’S e do bheatha, ’s e na beatha_ ,” he told her,  _welcome_ , and held her close, close enough that he could smell the sweet scent of her hair, feel the warmth of her body against his. Then he let her go again, let her whirl away from him to sweep the dress up again. And it hurt him only a little to release her, the bittersweet pain in his chest that she alone caused, that he’d stopped fighting a very long time ago.

He was pretty when he smiled, she thought, watching him move around the kitchen, using a bit of this, a sprinkle of that, cooking the same instinctive way he used his magic. Always beautiful, in the way he moved with his lethal grace, like a _cuir cat-fiadhaich_ , a snow cat, and in the harsh, rugged planes and angles of his narrow face. But when he grinned, and let it reach his grey-ice eyes, he was…not handsome, she decided. Handsome was a mild word, too insipid to be used to describe him.

He lit up. Yes, that was it. He lit up from the inside when he smiled—different from the way he lit when he was using the magic in him, different from the light of quiet pleasure their lessons together, with books and discussion and learning—when he meant the smile, as he did now. Here was true joy, cheerful and careless. It was a present to watch, his smiling. She smiled back.

 

-8-8-8-

 

_“My lord, can you help me?”_

_His mouth twitched up at the corner, and he took the brush from her, pulling it through her long golden hair easily, cannily avoiding the knots that attempted to ensnare brush and cause Rapunzel pain. Those he eased away, as he did every morning, and in the evenings as well. It was a ritual for them, and had been since her hair had passed the bottom of her shoulder blades._

_Liquid light, it was, her hair. The color of sunshine, and the fluid consistency of oiled silk. But it liked to snarl itself with any passing breeze or movement of her head, so he bound it back for her, in one long, thick braid._

_“There you are, bròineán.”_

 

-8-8-8-

 

While Rapunzel and her sorcerer dined and went their separate ways to sleep, Caoin slogged through endless journals, searching for some hint of who the beautiful girl imprisoned in Bàn Snìomhán was.

His parents thought him obsessed, the servants believed him rather mad. He had come home raving about a pretty girl trapped in a tower in the Forest. He had taken his midday and evening meals in the library—a rarity for the exuberant, active prince. And yet he still searched, hours past nightfall.

“Found it!” Caoin bolted to his feet, the triumphant shout on his lips. Here it was, at last, in a journal from a certain tiny little village near the Forest. Here it was, an account from ten year ago, of a blond girl-child disappearing—whisked away by the Demon Mage—shortly after the family had moved there from a neighboring village to escape the sorcerer.

It was Rapunzel, he thought, and her ‘lord’ the mage. He would stake his kingdom on it. Cold coalesced in his stomach at the thought of her in the clutches of the Demon Mage. The Mage was something of a legend in these parts. A wizard-for-hire, who, it was said, would do anything from heal a child to murder a man, for a price. Caoin had an extra reason to be wary of the sorcerer—he had been advising King Murchadh for years, aiding the blasted old man in thwarting Seòbhrach Rubha at every turn. Only the gods knew what he might have done to Rapunzel in ten years time.

Well, no more, Caoin vowed. He’d put a stop to it, whatever it was.


	8. Chapter 8

Dórainn paced, long, brooding strides back and forth across the room. A nervy, heavy feeling was keeping him from sleep, a very innate, desperate quiver of instinct. Something, he wasn’t sure what, was going to happen. It would be big, and very likely unpleasant.

He was growing paranoid, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Little stopped guilt from sneaking past his barricades these days. Maybe it was the guilt that was getting to him, he thought, whirling about to stride again toward the kitchen. It was a tricky monster, guilt, and it preferred its prey distracted before it struck in full. Dórainn wondered bitterly if he was going mad with it. What else could explain the cold sweat that occasionally chilled his back as it did now, the swift clutches in his belly at the slightest thought of her?

He had to get out of here. Panic was beginning to bring the walls far too close, was making his hands tremble and his heart pound erratically. Soon the crackles of a fire that wasn’t burning would begin to ring in his ears, and the shouts of a crowd of zealots with them.

He needed a walk, that was all, so that he could draw a deep breath and stop this ridiculous gasping. What if—oh gods—what if Rapunzel came in, saw him having this…this bloody fit? That he could not stand.

He didn’t bother with his cloak, despite the chill of winter on the air, just hurried down the stairs.

Cináed stirred as he bolted down the stairs, but the dragon said nothing as he passed, only watched him with his too-intelligent, too-perceptive yellow eyes.

 

-8-8-8-

 

It was not unusual for the mage to leave at night, Cináed knew, to walk, or to give aid to whatever demon or particularly perceptive animal who came to the tower and cried desperately enough. But he rarely dashed out with his face pale as snow and his eyes rather wild. It wasn’t, precisely, that he was concerned, the dragon assured himself. It would be the height of idiocy, after all, to worry about the arrogant mage who’d bound him to this tower. He was seldom such a fool.

That he’d known Alasdair—not that that was the mage’s true name, of course—since the sorcerer had been a gangly adolescent might have contributed, in part, to the little flickers of unease. Nevertheless, the disquiet was tugging at him too, alerting him to something changing, shifting, in the grand scheme of things. So he would wait, and he would watch.

And, he admitted grudgingly, he would stand behind the pompous brat of a mage if the need struck.

The mage returned, looking more in control but no less troubled. His eyes were no longer wild, but now they were weary, hollow, almost. The dragon couldn’t say he liked the change overmuch. His color hadn’t come back either, except where the wind had slapped. But he seemed steadier, at least, if not wholly well. Cináed would hope it was enough to weather whatever was coming.

 

-8-8-8-

 

_‘Monster’, the snide little voices insisted. They had finally emerged one day, years before, from a knot of darkness than seemed locked inside him, invading his dreams, his waking hours._

_‘No’, he replied, and fought to be free of the darkness. ‘No.’ But it wrapped closer, binding him against it, trapping him too close to himself._

_‘Oh yes, yes, you are.’_

_And there was fire, burning against him, wrapping itself around him, a great flaming serpent._

_So he fought against that, tried to summon water, or steal away the air the fire fed on._

_But the voices laughed, and he could do nothing. Again, he was a child, the fiery snake turned to writhing black figures, his father, Da, in amongst them. Suddenly there was fear, wild and thoughtless, streaming through him, where there had been cool-headed denial before. Power built, as terrifying as it had been all his young life. Struggles were useless; trying to hold in the roaring white power was futile. It filled him again, exploded from him again._

_‘No, no—no!’_

_‘Monster,’ the blackness whispered. ‘Yes, demon. Twenty people, monster, and nine more added to that.’_

_‘No—I didn’t mean—no—’ Faces began to parade past his eyes, every life he’d taken, or destroyed, the fire-serpent wrapping around them, condemnation in their cold eyes._

_His father’s eyes, Da’s._

_‘No, no, no—’ if he chanted it, if he could keep from weeping or crying out aloud, maybe they’d go away, leave him in peace. ‘No, no, no, no.’_

_He was a man again, abruptly, still gasping from the fury of fear, the sick guilt he hated._

_‘Where’s Mama—or Da?’ Rapunzel asked._

_He quailed—this, this he couldn’t stand against. Not her, not now. ‘No, no, please, no—’_

_‘Why did you take me?’ She asked, and stroked the head of the fire-snake. ‘Why did you steal me from Mama and Da?’_

 

He woke gasping, the tears silent and searingly hot against his cheeks before he brushed them away. He rose to pace the still-dark room again, resolved not to sleep, and not to wake the girl that slept downstairs with any noise.

 

-8-8-8-

 

“I won’t be long,” he promised woodenly. “I should be back before lunch. I’ll teach you about symbols of power when I get back, alright?”

“Alright. Be safe,” Rapunzel replied. He nodded, kissed her forehead mechanically, bent to let her kiss his cheek. She watched him go, wondering worriedly what had put the stark bleakness in his eyes this morning. He had seemed so cheerful last night, but this morning he’d been distant and quiet, even for him.

She didn’t worry long, though. He had moods, just as she did occasionally. There wasn’t anything to worry about. Within the hour, just as she settled down with a cup of tea and the mountain of a book on power runes, Caoin came.

“Rapunzel! Let down your hair! Rapunzel!”

She let him up, greeted him with a smile. “Hello. How are you?”

He smiled back, but his eyes were shadowed, and there was a rope over his shoulder. “I’m well. Rapunzel…did you always live with the mage?”

She blinked, frowned thoughtfully. “With my lord? No,” she shook her head, “I was seven when I came to live with him.”

“And your parents never came to see you?”

“No. But why are you—”

“Your mage is known as the Demon Mage, Rapunzel,” he said quietly. “He’s…well, they say he’s killed at least ten men. He kidnapped you.”

“What?” Rapunzel took a step back, unconsciously retreating. “What are you saying? My lord didn’t—”

“I have proof.” He pulled a small book from the pouch on his belt, flipped to a page near the end, rattled off a date from ten years ago. “‘A couple from Staireán Sruth reported a demon attack last night. Their child, Rapunzel Muireadhach, was stolen. It is believed that the kidnapping was the work of the Demon Mage.’ That’s you, isn’t it?”

She went pale. “He didn’t—he’s not—My lord raised me! He didn’t kidnap me!”

Caoin’s eyes were flat. “Your ‘lord’ is the Demon Mage.”

“No!”

“Has he got black hair and grey eyes? Is he tall?”

Rapunzel’s eyes widened. “How did you—”

“He’s the Demon Mage, Rapunzel,” Caoin repeated, all doubts gone now. “He’s been around for years—he appeared one day nearly twenty years ago as a mage-for-hire. They say he’ll do anything for the right price—curse someone, steal, kill. He’s dangerous, Rapunzel. You have to come away with me.”

“But—but—”

“Your parents moved out of their house a while ago, but I have men looking for them. When I find them, you can meet them.”

“My—my parents?” Mama…and Da, and her brother and sister and Grandfather. She remembered them, but more as far away figures superimposed by Dórainn. He couldn’t have…could he?…Could he really have…?

“Yes. Rapunzel, you have to get away from here. It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous!” she said, shocked by it. What could be dangerous about staying?

He nodded, bright brown eyes serious. “He might hurt you.”

“No.” the thought of it, the very thought of Dórainn raising a hand to her was inconceivable. Inconceivable enough to have her refusing to listen anymore. “No. He wouldn’t hurt me, ever. How dare you?”

“But—”

“You don’t even know him!” she cried, appalled. “How can you say such things?”

“I’m not lying, Rapunzel. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, but it’s the truth.”

She shook her head. “No. You have to leave. Please, go.”

“Rapunzel…”

“Go! Please, leave!” She would not listen, not to this. He was gentle—kind—

Caoin nodded, bright face grim. “Alright. But I’m telling the truth. Remember—this is the Dark Forest. Your lord _is_ the Demon Mage.” He stepped back to the window, “I’ll let myself down, and I’m coming back tomorrow.”

“No,” Rapunzel said, shaking her head. “No, don’t!”

“How can I leave you here? How can I leave you alone with a monster I know has killed people?” he demanded suddenly, fine brown eyes blazing. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Rapunzel!”

“He’s not a monster…” She murmured as he disappeared down his rope.

It was several minutes before she realized that she was trembling so hard she nearly vibrated. It—it simply wasn’t possible that Dórainn had kidnapped her. He had taken her in, had stood for her parents all these years, had raised her, taught her, given her art. He couldn’t have…

But.

She hated that she doubted, hated that she could, for even a moment, see him doing such a thing. He had never shown her aught but the utmost kindness.

“What am I going to do?” she asked the cat, sinking down into the chair at the table. Kier meowed, and leaped onto the table. When he found no convenient plates, he wandered over to her, rubbed his face against hers, purring hopefully. “What am I going to do?” she asked again, scooping Kier off the table again and into her lap, to stroke him.

He put up with it for about a minute, then struggled free, and gave her a golden-eyed look of reproach before settling to smooth fur ruffled by the impertinent hug.


	9. Chapter 9

There was something wrong with Rapunzel. Dórainn wasn’t sure what it was, but she was edgy and tense—and Rapunzel was never edgy or tense. All throughout her lesson, she had avoided his eyes, when she had never before avoided his gaze. She wouldn’t touch him, either. None of the little brushes they usually shared—a hand on the shoulder, a brief brush at a wayward strand of hair—none of the countless, careless contacts that were so much a part of their daily interactions.

He had dread curling in his stomach, cold, helpless dread. She was drawing away from him, and he could do nothing about it. He didn’t know what had caused it, this sudden coolness, but he knew it for what it was—suspicion. How could he not know it when he saw it, when he knew her the way he did? And how could he not fear what was to come, when she was already easing away from him?

So they went in taut, splintery silence, until supper had been eaten and the plates washed.

“Um…”

It was the first word she’d spoken in hours—the shoe dropping. He looked at her, the terror coalescing into a tight knot in his gut. He pushed it down. What would come, he knew, would come. “Yes?”

“There’s something I wanted to ask…” she finally looked up, those big blue eyes of hers anxious. “My lord, you, um, you took me in when I was seven, right?”

Shock held him stock-still. He had assumed she would ask him about the contracts—he had written documentation right over there, on the desk, didn’t he? Papers that asked him to achieve a myriad of things, both terrible and benign. And why shouldn’t she ask him about them? But _this_ —

 _No—please, no_ —

“I mean, you didn’t, well, kidnap me, or anything, right?” Why did he have that look on his face? He’d gone pale, grey, even, and his eyes were stark on hers. Why did he look so—so stricken? As though she had slapped him. Or, as though she’d…been wrong, when she’d thought he couldn’t possibly have kidnapped her.

“Rapunzel…” Where had she found out? he wondered wildly. There was nothing here that she would find that out from—

 “There was someone here, wasn’t there?” Cináed would have told him if someone had come in that way—and wouldn’t have let anyone but Rapunzel’s parents. She had let someone up. And now she watched him with wary, suspicious eyes, like he was some kind of monster.

The shock of betrayal, the pain of it, had anger stirring in him. “You let someone up. A stranger.”

“Did you kidnap me?” She demanded. “Have you been lying to me all these years?”

The question, the tone of it, stopped him cold, had ruthless guilt clawing at him, slicing through anger and pain. Beneath the guilt, though, beneath anger and pain, was fear—fear and conscience, demanding truth. So he spoke quietly, and answered truthfully.

“Yes. For—”

The flash of alarm in her eyes rent his heart in two, as easily as a sharp blade through thin paper. And had rage blooming in him, turning what had been anger into something far more dangerous. _Truth_ , he thought bitterly, and hated himself.

“Yes, I stole you from your parents. Yes, I’ve lied to you for years. No, I’m not the man, or even the mage you thought I was. Was that what you wanted to hear?” he smiled, coldly, caustically—anything to keep from begging her forgiveness. That, surely as anything, would break him in two brittle, withering pieces.

“Then…you’re…” Her eyes were wide, bright with the tears that brimmed in them, and her voice trembled. “The—De—”

“Say it,” he commanded, hurling the words like a whip.

“The Demon Mage,” she whispered.

“Oh, yes, I see you’ve heard the moniker.” And that, somehow, managed to make the pain worse, hearing the name on her lips, knowing that would be all she saw in him now. _The Demon Mage_. “Yes, I’ve been called the Demon Mage, and worse things besides. Does that make you afraid of me?”

She merely stared at him, trembling a little. Who was this, this cold, cruel person standing before her, his eyes so hard, and his mouth twisted into that nasty little smirk?

If their time together was to end in tragedy, he thought fiercely, pushing forward the fury and blocking the crippling pain beneath it, and the fulfilled terrors beneath even the pain, then it would be an end he made, himself.

She started like a rabbit when he paced toward her, backed away before him. “Yes, I see you are,” he murmured. His voice was hard as ice, and as cold. “Isn’t that interesting? What are you afraid of, little girl?”

“What are you—” he had backed her against a wall, and still he kept coming, those pale silver eyes of his dark with rage she’d never seen in them before and just a little bit cruel. This wasn’t the Dórainn she knew, wasn’t the kind, quiet man she knew and had loved. This was the Demon Mage, with all the dark, mysterious powers and strange, frightening ways that such a name entailed.

“Are you afraid that I might hurt you?” he lifted a hand, oh-so-gently curled his long, beautiful fingers around the slender length of her throat. The other hand toyed the rope of braid that had slipped its pins. A flash of power severed the hair, as easily as a blade through thin, fine silk. Then the sleek, satin weight of it hung heavily in his hand, as limp and cold as something dead.

Terror, bright and instinctive, lit her eyes now, not laughter. Revulsion had her cringing from him, had her flattened against a wall to escape him. There were tears in her eyes, silently trickling down her pale cheeks, tears that he’d put there.

It struck him then, the full magnitude of his actions. He released her, and turned away, feeling hollow and ill. The rope of hair fell to the ground—while what had remained on her head came free of its braid.

What was he doing? For a moment, he’d seen his father’s hands were his own had been. Had he sunk so deep, then, that he would resort to such violence?

_Monster. Demon._

Perhaps, yes…

“The next time you see your stranger, you should go with him.”

“Why?” she asked suddenly, watching him with those tears still pouring from her crystalline eyes. “Why do I have to believe a stranger?” she had always trusted him, had always looked to him. “Why didn’t you make me believe you?” she cried, swiping at tears that shamed her with their uselessness.

That broke his heart again, the knowledge that should have been obvious—he could have denied it, and _nothing would have changed_ —taking up the two fragile pieces and tossing them to the floor, to shatter there like glass beside the satin braid.

“Rapunzel…” He turned back to her, and lifted a hand, to brush away the tears himself. Uselessly, he knew, and dropped it again helplessly before he touched her. He had ruined it, the thing that had flourished between them. Destroyed the very thing he had all but lived for, with his own hands.

And he had no one but himself to blame for it. Knowing it, he turned and walked away, leaving her to slide down the wall, her skirt pooling around her as she wept.


	10. Chapter 10

_Cold. The wind scythed like Death’s blade across his body, keen and bitter. Still there was a long scar in the land, a score of black biting into the earth, where old blood had been shed and no plants now grew. And now, there was new to join the old—two men, who’d been mere boys when their parents had been ripped away, come to try and end the same life their fathers and mothers had sought to. It had been self-defense, but life had ended as a result, and must now be sent on with proper respect._

 

-8-8-8-

 

He didn’t dream as he’d thought he might, with the dark memories that delighted in haunting his sleeping mind crowding in. He hadn’t dreamt, he thought as he rose at dawn still wearing the same clothes, because he hadn’t slept. Instead, a nagging headache had chased him throughout the night, feeding and being fed by the unceasing pain in his chest. Still, the guilt had found its vicious way in, as had the memories.

He padded down the stairs that led to his room, and stopped dead at the bottom. A fool, he mused wearily, to think his heart couldn’t break again, that the pieces couldn’t be stamped into even tinier pieces. For there she was, just where he’d left her, curled into a miserable huddle against the wall with the tear tracks still staining her pale face. Not a yard away, her braid lay like a dead snake, its life pitifully crushed. He lifted her gently, found that she weighed far less than he would have thought—a ghost, untouchable and beautiful—and took her, after a moment’s hesitation, to his own bed. The excuses he could have made were legion—the bed was larger, the north-facing window would let in less of the dawn light that might disturb her sleep, it was quieter. But he wanted to see her here, just once wanted to see the pale silk of her hair—still long enough to brush at the lower contours of her shoulder blades, for all he had severed nearly a forearm’s length—spread across his pillow, her slender, lovely body in his bed, still as innocent, still as bright and as beautiful as she’d been when he’d first seen her.

But now she was no longer his, not even to love.

 

-8-8-8-

 

When she was settled, he left her there, and went downstairs. The cat looked up expectantly at him, anticipating breakfast. Dórainn lit the fire, set on the kettle for tea. Then he straightened up, and calmly—or maybe numbly, he knew not—turned to face the young man that had just entered his tower.

Good clothes, simple and unadorned in the way only the very rich could afford. Clean, he was, and golden from hunting and riding in the sun. He had, Dórainn noted, his father’s eyes, about three decades younger. Innocent in the ways that mattered, the mage decided, with none of the false kindness that nobility so often had masking cruel, petty natures, even if he seemed no deeper than a puddle. This would be Caoin, then, the high prince and heir to the throne of Seòbhrach Rubha. Dórainn had heard good things about him, if that he had little more intelligence than a puppy.

“You’re the Demon Mage?” The prince asked after the long moment, without candor. “I am Caoin. I’ve come for Rapunzel.”

“She’s sleeping. You may take her when she’s woken.” He turned away, went back to the fire, where the kettle was beginning to let out wisps of steam. Not quite boiling, but it would do, and it would give him something to do to keep his hands from trembling. “Wait downstairs, if you please.”

“That’s it?” The prince demanded. “That’s all you can say?”

Dórainn flicked a glance toward him. “What do you want me to say?”

“You kidnapped her, held her captive in this tower for ten years, and all you can say is ‘take her’? Haven’t you any feelings?”

“What do you expect me to feel?” the sorcerer inquired, his grey eyes gone icy. He had finished, much to his regret, with the kettle, so he put it back and watched the Prince levelly. “What makes you believe I feel anything at all?”

“You committed a crime! You should at least feel guilty for that! You stole her from her parents, stole ten years from her! Do you feel no remorse?” The boy’s eyes were flashing with fiery indignation, while the mage’s only grew colder.

“So speaks you, who knows no guilt, and needs no remorse. Her parents, do they feel guilty for what they did to her?”

Caoin’s brows beetled, a puzzled look slid onto his handsome face. “What are you talking about?”

“I see you haven’t found them yet. Very well, I’ll tell you. Eighteen years ago, I found a man in my garden, stealing herbs. When I called out, he ran. He returned the next day, and tried to take more,” Dórainn’s voice had gone quiet, deadly. “I caught him that time, and he babbled about his wife needing the plants, and that if I would spare him, I could have the child when she was born.”

He watched the prince as he spoke, watched the play of emotions run across his young face. “I agreed; mostly to see what he’d do, not from any desire for a child dependent on me. But when the time came, they refused to hold up their end of the bargain. They didn’t even face me, but fled, hiding her away for seven years, moving from town to town. When I found them, they had left her in the forest, alone, after nightfall. Wonderful parents, no?”

Horror etched into the Prince’s expression, but his eyes remained direct. “And you locked her away in a tower! How does that make you any better?”

“How indeed,” Dórainn murmured. “I gave them every chance to retrieve her. They had only to come here, and I would have returned her to them.”

“To be met with a dragon, and the Demon Mage himself!” Caoin shouted.

Dórainn’s eyes narrowed, keying to what the witless lad called him. “It was you, then, who gave her that name.”

“That’s right—I told her the truth, that’s all!”

Dórainn smiled mirthlessly, the cold smile he employed in such situations as these. “Your version of the truth. Not precisely unbiased, Prince of Seòbhrach Rubha. We have not been friends, your father and I, have we? I have no doubt he resents my stepping in between Murchadh and him.” He turned his back on the Prince, dismissing the boy. “But still, you’ve achieved your goal, and turned her to your way of thinking.”

And didn’t it hurt, knowing that he had played straight into the hands of this young pup and turned her away with his own temper?

“No,” the Prince said slowly. “I haven’t, yet. Not entirely.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter comes with a warning: truly gods-awful quasi-poetry in the form of shoddy spell-work approaches.

She woke slowly, roused by raised voices, and disoriented. The room she woke in was not her own, and gave her a pause before she realized that she was in Dórainn’s bedchamber, sprawled on his bed, in the room she’d been in only once. But the voices were getting louder, and she blinked, confused by it. One was Dórainn’s voice, but he was shouting—he never shouted. And the other… There was no one in the tower but Dórainn, the dragon and the cat, and the dragon’s voice was a deep, rough rumble—one she’d heard countless times as a child, listening curiously from the very top of the stairs. The other voice had no place here, not now…

Shaking her head, wincing at the headache weeping had put there, she climbed out of the bed. The room was so gloomy, and so very bare, she thought. Only the bed, a clothes chest, and a table, littered with a few tools, a shaving kit, and a book or two laying on its surface. And a brace of daggers, long and lethal inside their sheaths. She had never seen him wear them before.

There was a shout from downstairs, harsh and strangely exultant. She turned away from the room, and hurried down the stairs, emerging from the staircase in time to see Dórainn jerk away from Caoin, cold violence written on his narrow face. Then he flung out a long-fingered hand, and magic with it. She didn’t see the blast of mage-craft from the gesture, but she felt it, saw it knock Caoin back toward the window. And then there was no thought, but action.

 

 

Pain ripped through his shoulder, burning like hellfire where the brat had placed his blade. _Fool_ , to turn his back, no matter how harmless the boy looked. Dórainn jerked back from the Prince, felt the dagger rip out of him again before he instinctively hurled out the power that had boiled up.

Caoin staggered back, hit the ledge of the window, and then, to his horror, felt himself falling backward.

“Sh—” A blur of gold flashed past Dórainn as he attempted to regain his own balance, and reach for the boy at the same time. He felt his heart stop, felt his world constrict. “Rapun—”

She bolted for the window herself, grabbing for the prince. And everything seemed to slow for the sorcerer, rooted to the spot as he watched Caoin’s weight tug her after him.

He may have shouted—certainly, he sent magic winging after them, pure, raw magic that would shape itself, and save her. _Thorn_ , he begged silently, working the spell frantically, forced to resort to rhyming like the most uneducated of hedgewitches to put the power into effect as quickly as he needed, _thistle, briar rose. Sheath thy blades—Aid me and pose, your reward to choose, but protect the girl I can’t bear to lose._

Then he turned and rushed for the stairs, bolting down them so quickly he nearly sent himself to his own death half a dozen times, trying to descend as quickly as possible.

 

Cináed watched him, and got to his feet, out of the sorcerer’s way. And when Dórainn flew out of the tower, heedless of the blood trailing behind him, the dragon followed quickly.

Cináed nearly tripped over the sorcerer in his haste to follow.

Dórainn had stopped a few steps beyond the door, and stood, silently watching the prince lead fair-haired, unharmed Rapunzel over to where a servant waited with a tall white palfrey.

He seemed to have yet to notice that blood still flowed down his arm from the wound in his shoulder, still dripped a steady staccato tempo into the earth at his feet. Beside them, wrapping around the tower like ardent lovers, hundreds of thick vines climbed and clung to the stone. Some still bore roses, the hearty briars that flourished here in the bitter North, red as blood. Others had thorns as long as the sorcerer’s forearm. How much magic had the mage used, to pull those plants from the ground so quickly, with no preparation, in the dead of winter? Surely too much. He couldn’t have retained more than the veriest scraps of his strength.

“You’ll want to take your freedom now.”

The dragon looked away from where the pretty blond girl was being helped onto the horse. The sorcerer’s voice was emotionless and flat—nearly, Cináed noted, as hollow as those grey eyes of his.

The fool mage had lost his heart to the lass on the white horse, the dragon thought, and surprised himself with a feeling alarmingly close to pity.

“So it would seem,” he responded. Strangely, ten years of anger—little enough time to him, as ten years was to him as a year, if even that, was to a human—had disappeared like smoke. In its place was irritation—stupid, idiot fool, offering him a fight when he wasn’t full strength. It insulted them both—nothing more.

Dórainn turned. He moved carefully, as though every movement ground his bones together. His face was ashy, magic fatigue already showing on it. If the results were that visible, the mage had nothing left to throw at him—and little more than sheer will keeping him standing, either.

“Come, then.”

“I could kill you with a blow,” Cináed growled, and refused to take the step back he wanted. Damned if he would retreat, no matter how uncomfortable he was with the mage’s sudden request for death.

The mage’s mouth quirked, and he lifted his gaze to the dragon’s. “You could, yes.”

 

He wanted the end of it. Surely, it couldn’t hurt more, not now. Here, he’d thought he’d prepared himself for the pain of Rapunzel’s departure—instead, it had cut him off at the knees, and left him raw and bleeding and stunned with the pain a thousand times the worse than last night’s. If there could be worse, he didn’t want to feel it, didn’t think he could stand to bear it.

There was pride to consider, too—his, the dragon’s. Cináed, he hoped, would need a battle to the end to assuage his, and his own wouldn’t let him sink to preparing himself poison, or let him beg outright. Better to die now, at the claws of an old friend now lost to him, than to let himself fade slowly into madness. 

It would come, he knew, the madness. He could already feel the subtle tug of it, the awful loneliness of it, the insidious voices that would never let him alone if he gave in to them even once. The way of madness led to dark things--things he refused to be capable of, things he was more than prepared to face death for in their stead. And if madness didn’t take him (it would), Rìoghainn would have a mob after him soon, to finish the mess. He didn’t fear passing, not really. He was a mage, a scholar, and what was death but one of the gateways to be passed through?

But he could also feel the strong, greedy life, pounding through his veins, dripping from his shoulder more slowly now, and knew he wasn’t strong enough to end it himself. Unless stopped, he'd cling until the edges of insanity were passed, and then someone would truly have to _stop_ him; there was already a very fine line he walked between the grey he used and the dark he wanted to avoid.

Only three, as far as he could figure, had a right to his life; Roarke would have only grown cold-eyed, should he say such a thing, and even with thirty-nine winters behind him, he dreaded disappointing the man; Rapunzel had already gone, and would have been horrified besides. So it would have to be Cináed.

“You insult us both, mageling,” the dragon rumbled. There was fresh temper in his eyes—not the old, ten-year rage nurtured in the bottom of the tower, but new, bright and hot and aimed at him.

Dórainn added to it by smiling again. It was an ugly thing, too broken to sit properly on such a dour face.

“Yes. I bound you,” he reminded, when Cináed turned away. Slowly, he turned back. “Bound you, and on guard duty, too. I, then a mage of a measly three decades, and you, Cináed, a hoar-dragon of nine centuries. That’s nine centuries and ten years, now, thanks to me. Ten years without home, unable to see mate or child,” Dórainn taunted softly, not bothering now to push away regret—he couldn’t regret Rapunzel’s safety, but the way he’d ensured it, at the expense of a friend’s happiness, he could, with ease.

 _Nine and twenty, mageling_ , the voices chorused. _Nine and twenty lives._

The dragon reacted with a speed that Dórainn, briefly distracted, nearly missed. He was on his back in an instant, landing heavily in the icy mud, and was pinned there immediately, one of Cináed’s huge, talon-tipped paws settled heavily on his chest. Here was death, in several tons of angry dragon, swift and immediate. He opened himself to it, forced down the insistent part of himself that demanded he live. Forced, more viciously, down the part of him that saw, for an instant, a flaming serpent in his old friend’s place.

 

Then…nothing.

“You’ve grown soft, Cináed,” the sorcerer said quietly. Carefully, awkwardly, he pulled back together the veil of magic and will that hid his vulnerable life force, as suddenly as shamed as any rash lad who'd ever proposed a notion and been carelessly shot down.

“Did you think I would play your games, mage?” the dragon growled in return, his large head inches from Dórainn, his daggerish teeth bared in a vicious snarl. “Did you think I would make it easy for you, and kill you?”

“I had hoped.”

“You haven’t even the strength to heal this, do you?” he asked, flicking one of those five-inch-long claws over the stab wound. It throbbed in response, a sharper pain in a world where every breath he took brought with it a dull, pounding ache that crested through his entire body. Wasted it, the dragon thought, on a faithless girl and a useless boy-child.

“No.” 

“Fool,” the dragon spat.

“Yes,” he sighed. He was, to believe the dragon would not have seen through the rather weak ruse. To believe he could escape, so easily, so painlessly, to where none of it mattered.

“You aren’t worth the effort it would take.” There was disappointment in the dragon’s voice, hot and bitter, sowing more shame. “Bleed to death then, if you will it.”

He didn’t bother to answer, and Cináed lifted his paw with a look of disgust and stalked away, toward the mountains. He would not be coming back.

It would be the madness, then, the slow, gradual torture of it, or the blade of one of Rìoghainn’s soldiers. But until then, he was alone, and not even strong enough to heal himself.

He picked himself up wearily, and walked to the tower. What had he expected, really? He wondered, a thin, humorless laugh managing to escape a throat that was tight with bitterness. There were some destined for happiness, others, not. The majority of his had just ridden away.

 

 

The stairs were surely higher and longer than they’d ever been before. It was hell, to climb them for what seemed forever. There was nothing waiting for him to speed his way, no light, no welcome. Just a cat who preferred the one who’d gone, and ghosts with the voices of devils.

Kier met him at the door, with an irritated yowl at being left alone. He followed the sorcerer as Dórainn got out bandages and herbs, sat watching him as he mechanically placed a poultice on his wound and bound it up—the knife, it seemed, had struck one of the small, high-up ribs just under his clavicle, saving him from a messy, rather swift death, or at least a collapsing lung—followed him when he went, stiffly, to change clothes. The wound hurt, the sorcerer supposed, or would, when his heart stopped splintering in his chest and he could feel something beside a rather horrid medley of despair and pain.

The silence was profound, here in the tower without her. Was this how she’d felt every time he’d gone out? He hoped to the gods it hadn’t been, hoped that he had not broken his vow that she would not be harmed by his choices by leaving her here.

Had she, though? Had he blindly endangered her, unknowingly put her in the same dangers he himself had been in, noticed only later, in his mage master’s home? There were many things here, needed for mage-craft, that were dangerous—ceremonial knives kept sharp, herbs that could kill with the smallest of amounts, objects with power that could harm the mind in terrible ways. Had he, weighed with guilt, neglected her to the loneliness he now faced?

The possibility left him cold and ill in his gut, fighting to keep from doubling over with the regrets, and the loneliness. He’d once craved nothing but his privacy—every young man eventually needs to leave the home of his parent, even he, and even the home of his foster parent-mage master—but now it seemed he could no longer be content with his own company, now that he had loved and lost. It wasn’t better, he’d found, to love, not always. Not now.

He rose from the chair before the dying fire, wandered the tower like one of the ghosts from his own memories. Here, on the door jam, the marks of how tall she had grown over the years. There, her books, the ones he had purchased in markets, stood beside his, abandoned in her haste. Her favorite mug, the white frock she’d never worn and never would. Her paintings and drawings upon the walls, making it all so much more cheerful than he ever could have.

He picked up the cloth, staring at it blindly, and wondered blearily why it would affect him so profoundly; create its own personal crack in the heart he wasn’t sure she hadn’t taken with her as she’d gone, when he was surrounded in things she’d left behind. He wanted to weep, wanted to simply bury his face in it and weep. He would have, but something beyond simple pride halted him, stopped the release of pain. The braid, perhaps, that lay there on his floor still, a silent, eloquent accusation. Or a lack in him, he supposed, some deficiency of emotional reaction. He put down the girdle again, and walked to the braid, bent to lift it from the floor and wrapped it loosely around his hand like a talisman. Holding it, he paced to the window, stared out, to the west, where she would be going.

She would marry well, in the Seòbhrach Rubha court. There must be someone there who would be kind enough, smart enough, to win her heart. Perhaps she would wed the prince himself. She would be in no danger there—Rìoghainn would take her as a ward until she married, if only to rub it in his face. Rapunzel would lack for nothing, would _want_ for nothing.

It was best, really, that she be there instead of here. He could convince himself of that in time, he was sure. Best for her, anyway, as pain shot through him, pounding against his temples, battering him against the iron walls of control. She was welcome to dismiss the evil mage who’d stolen her from hearth and home, kept her for himself.

He had no such entity to blame, though, save himself.

And the length of her hair still smelled of the lavender water she’d washed it with.

The cat meowed, insistently, and reared back on his hind paws to dig sharp fore-claws warningly into Dórainn’s leg. Breakfast, he demanded, and now. The cat cared nothing of the mage’s pain and self-pity. Appreciating the cat’s distraction even if he didn’t enjoy the mild pricks of his claws, and disgusted by his own melancholy, the sorcerer fed him. He was thanked with a haughty swish of a grey tail, as Kier took the bit of beef and saucer of milk as his due.

There was nothing left here for him, the sorcerer knew, except insanity and death. So he would go, where he could mourn in solitude the loss of a dream he’d always known would never come to anything, where he could court the madness on his own terms, and defy the death Rìoghainn had once threatened him with.


	12. Chapter 12

The throne hall was a huge place, bright and colorful, and filled with people in magnificent clothes. Impractical, she thought with a wan inwards smile, but magnificent in their foolishness. The King sat in a large chair, a throne, looking like an aging lion, regal and fierce. His shock of hair was silver, and still thick on his head, his back still straight, his shoulders still broad and unstooped.

Court, what she had seen of it, was vivid and alive, and terribly frightening. All these cold-eyed people, in all of their foolish finery. For all the lessons in etiquette, all the stories and knowledge Dórainn had passed on, what did she know about these people? How would she know what to say, how would she answer the questions that were sure to come? He was the Demon Mage—but he was also Dórainn—and what was _wrong_ with her, that she couldn’t see him clearly anymore? He wasn’t simply her Dórainn, kind and gentle and patient—but neither was he Caoin’s Demon Mage, merciless mage-for-hire, cold and hard—instead he was some strange, uncomfortable mix of the two, leaving her confused and hurting in her heart.  

But still, Caoin— _Prince Caoin_ , as she must think of him now—led her forward, through a crowded chamber. So she walked with him, with head unknowingly held high, face serene.

“Presenting to his Royal Majesty the King: High Prince Caoin of Seòbhrach Rubha and Rapunzel Muireadhach of Bàn Snìomhán.”

Only the sorcerer, if he’d been there, would have seen the turmoil in her blue eyes.

And so she was introduced to King Rìoghainn of Seòbhrach Rubha before the jaded eyes of the court. She made her curtsy, a flawless dip, learned through endless repetition at the insistence of Dórainn.

“Your Majesty is most kind, greeting me thus.”

Startled by the good manners—who’d have guessed that the Demon Mage would have taught his captive so well?—the King bade her to rise, and kissed her cheeks lightly, as he would a favorite daughter.

Then she was swept away, to be outfitted in a manner befitting her new station—that of fiancé to the First Prince.


	13. Chapter 13

_Five months later…_

 

Court life was not at all like life in Bàn Snìomhán tower had been. There was, ironically, less privacy here in Seòbhrach Rubha than there had been with Dór—the Dem—the sorcerer. Here, there were at least a dozen people—maids, tailors, servants, courtiers—around at all times, until she could scream from the madness of it, and instead slipped away to take her refuge with paints and charcoal under the un-invasive eye of the timid painting master. When she was unable to escape, most of them spoke incessantly of her duty to Seòbhrach Rubha and to Caoin, or, when diverted of that tedious subject, of trivial nonsense like fashion, hairstyles, and who was sleeping with whom.

Rapunzel was alternately amused and irritated by it, and always it baffled her. Had they nothing better to think about? Nothing better to do, than to talk of clothes and the affairs of others? Where were the thrilling, laughter-filled discussions of literature and foreign lands? There were intellectuals here, but they were pompous, far-too-clever people who bickered and squabbled constantly among themselves, battling for the title of ‘cleverest’.

The balls were plentiful, and grew tedious quickly—the same people, the same doings, with different names attached. Heavy gowns that made her back and neck ache; shoes that made her feet wish to weep. And an engagement to a man, a boy, she knew little about.

Of…the sorcerer…she heard little true news. He had slipped out of Seòbhrach Rubha’s hands when—to her horror, hearing it after the fact—the King had sent men after him. The tower was deserted, it seemed, of man and beast alike.

The rest, though—and there was plenty, as he was a favorite subject of gossip—was vicious, in the patent civility-shrouded cruelty that some of the nobility seemed to cultivate from the cradle: he was the son of a demon, born under a dark moon on the darkest of nights—he kept the souls of his victims in bottles—he had made contracts with the darkest of demons and faeries in exchange for his powers.

And how lucky she was, for Prince Caoin to have saved her when he had, for the Demon Mage would certainly have done horrid things to her—while behind her back, they wondered what horrible things had already been done, and the best ways to get her to speak of them, poor girl, so that she could get such evil out of her mind—and, of course, to prick their jaded interest.

 

 

“Did you hear?” Aileas, one of the ladies-in-waiting—companions, Rapunzel thought, one could never escape, whether or no she wanted to—asked excitedly. She was a slender, sharp-featured woman, with luxurious dark hair that was her vanity. A gossip, she was, but not so spiteful as some, and kind enough to others when it occurred to her to be.

There was a chorus of tittering, while the ladies and Rapunzel sat embroidering. It was an inane task, she felt, one she’d never before despised—and one she’d never been before forced to do for hours on end. She missed the days of embroidering for the pleasure of it, not because it was one of the few things noble women were allowed to filled their time with.

“They say _he_ ’s back,” Aileas announced triumphantly, pleased to have been first with the knowledge. There was no need to ask whom—the wicked sparkle in her eye and the glance she flicked toward Rapunzel was enough to guess. She tensed against the hurt and anger that she often felt when _he_ was brought up—always with little glances of curious half-sympathy from onlookers. But it didn’t come, or not in its usual form.

How strange that it came as lonely misery, tinged with a yearning to return to the life she’d known before.

“Back at the—Bàn Snìomhán?” another lady, Catriona asked, one of those same glances jerking her watery blue eyes from Rapunzel to Aileas, and dropping her voice to a loud whisper.

“No—my maid says the guards haven’t seen anything of him that close to the castle. Someone spotted him on the road, riding toward the mountains.” The fresh gossip dispensed, the chatter turned to talk of the coming ball, and to hairstyles, hemlines, and men.

The mountains? She knew not what drew him to the mountains. Nor did she want to care, though she did. The anger of learning her life had been a lie, she realized with an inner jolt, had faded enough over the last five months for a desire for answers to come forward. Caoin, try as he and the King might, had not found her parents yet. The only other person with the answers she wanted—needed, if she were to be truthful—was Dórainn.


	14. Chapter 14

             _Fuil bi aig Beathan_. She stared at it, the condemning mark on her…fiancé’s wrist. Beathan’s Blood. It was an old symbol, the coiled black line, dating back to a time when strong magic-crafters were frequently hunted down and destroyed. It was an old practice, for a mage master to place a spell over a student when he—or she, as ever so occasionally mages were—had finished his studies, to mark someone who tried to harm him physically. It was a warning to other mages that would show on the wrist of the right hand of the mage’s aggressor.

            That it was on Prince Caoin’s wrist, where she hadn’t seen it until now, covered as it had been by the long sleeves of the winter months, was a nasty shock. It hadn’t been there when he’d come to her in the tower, she was sure of that. Her stomach lurched painfully—there were, maybe, three mages in a hundred mile radius at any one time.

They were a thinly numbered, often transient lot, preferring to go in search of greater and weightier powers in the remote corners of the world. Fewer still ventured this far to the North, which the Demon Mage had unofficially claimed as his province, backed, as if it were necessary, by the mysterious and dangerous Roarke, where few great deeds of ancient magecraft seemed to have been done, and there was little for already marked mages to learn. Any traveling mage would think twice before wandering heedlessly into the lands of one with the powers he controlled, dark or no.

            He couldn’t be dead, she thought, mechanically replying to a question one of the endless courtiers asked her. Hadn’t he been seen, just a few days ago, riding into the mountains? Wouldn’t there have been some kind of—cosmic _something_ , for the passing of a master mage? And wouldn’t she have known it, somewhere inside, if he’d died?

            Even so, the need to know, to be absolutely sure he was alive and well was nearly overpowering. She had to force herself to stay calm, to present the serene façade that should have come easily after the five months at court, to the roiling mass humanity that was Seòbhrach Rubha’s nobility to keep the storm of her emotions from shining through to be picked apart by the less kind of the aristocracy.

            Why did it matter, anyway? Anger, as swift as the fear had been, struck. Why did she care that he might have been hurt? Hadn’t he hurt her, lying to her for years, and then turning on her when she asked? She had no responsibility to him, no desire to care…

            And no defense against it, either. He had raised her, wrongfully or no, had helped to make her the woman she was. He had always been kind, if not entirely truthful, and caring. She loved him, in a strange way that could never be turned on another. Not father, but mentor, not friend, but greater than friend. Even the anger couldn’t stand against that, not for long.

            It was time to leave the court, with its superfluous embellishments and wild pursuit of the frivolous. If she could return to the simple, methodical world she’d lived in, she might. Or she might make her own path, and go where the road would take her. But answers, and assurance, must come first.

           

            It would be quickest, she decided that night as Mae, the maid, readied her for bed (regardless of her own wishes to undress herself), and cleanest, to simply leave. No frills, no one insisting she take this servant and that dress with her. She would take only her old clothes and as little coin as it was possible to live on. She would leave a note, of course, to assure Caoin and the King that she was well, and ask that they not follow her. And then she would slip out of the gardens and into the city, where she could start her journey.

            A sound enough plan, she thought with a wince as Mae’s comb snagged a knot in her long hair. The girl was clumsy with the long, silky locks in a way the sorcerer had never been, hitting every knot at the worst possible angle, and yanking—accidentally, Rapunzel was relatively certain—too hard. She grimaced again, and turned her mind back to the plan.

            A piece or two of the smaller jewelry would do her nicely, though it chafed to take even that. Her dress would be her own, so she felt no guilt for planning to take that. A sketchbook and pencils, pen, and inks. Nothing else, except, perhaps, a small ‘picnic’ begged from the burly cooks that ruled the kitchen-world of shouts and heat.

            “Thank you, Mae,” she murmured, as the maid finished plaiting her hair for sleep. The thick, heavy rope of it was wider than her wrist through most of its length, and the bright silver-shot gold of sunlight. And already, it hung to her waist—it wouldn’t be long until it reached its original length, around her knees.

            She slept the moment her head touched the pillow, plans and ideas still tumbling through her mind.

 

-8-8-8-

 

_It was a dream. Of course it was—Rapunzel wouldn’t be here, with him, otherwise. The knowledge of it, the lurking pain, had him turning back to the dream, embracing it, and her. Here, in the dreamworld, she was with him, aware of his strange, entangled feelings, and accepting of them. Here, she didn’t turn away, nor flee into the arms of Seòbhrach Rubha’s first prince. She, praise the gods or his own generous imagination, wanted him in return, here. He could love her amid the wispy shadows, and have her, without the shame of the spiritual incest. A dream, yes, but perhaps the only thing standing between him and the chasm dark with loneliness’s increasing loss of humanity._

 

-8-8-8-

 

Muir was happily cropping grass in a small paddock, the one he’d lived in, in the years preceding Rapun…seventeen years ago. It was little more than half of the small meadow the cottage was built in, with a large shed that leaned against the cottage itself. It had two stalls, and a small room for the storage of feed and hay and tack. It and the cottage, with its large main room, smaller bed chamber, minute water closet, copied from the most advanced nations of the South, and overhead loft for storage, were both covered liberally in dust, the thick, clinging stuff of nearly two decades gone. The last several months had done it no favors. He would spend a lot of energy, not all of it magical, restoring his home to its proper state.

But the travel had been worth it, the trip south and west to the Southern cities, then north again and east to see Roarke. His mage master was as always, sarcastic and even blunter than he. Father, in a way Da had never been, Roarke had seen to the heart of his troubles before Dórainn had had to say a word, and had promptly allowed him not to speak of it, if he wished, or broach the subject as he so chose. He hadn’t chosen to, but the knowledge that he could have, and been met with understanding, if not approval, was a kind of balm to his heart.

Home, or what was home again, was where he needed to be, and home he was, at last. He’d gotten back late the night before—too weary to do more than stable Muir and fall face forward into the bed he had hastily cleaned and freshened with magic. There, he’d dreamed, as he sometimes did. But he couldn’t think of the dream now, not in waking hours—that, he was very nearly positive, would have him going to her, begging for whatever forgiveness she might give, and risking everything that was left—was its own sort of madness. So he thought only of the mundane, and would savor the dreams as they came. For now, he concentrated on the dust that needed to be cleared away, the garden that needed to be retamed. The memories, the less kind ones…could, in time, be set aside. The love, perhaps not, but he would deal with that in its time too.

He had missed the garden, he realized abruptly, looking over what remained of the original herb garden. Missed the tangible connection between the earth, the source of magic, and the magic that lived in him. So the garden would come first, he decided. Two or three days should do it, between the magic and solid determination, to bring his plants back to order and good health.

 

Dórainn finished the garden in a day. By the end, he was grimy with dust, sore from the work of shifting dirt and working large magicks. But he felt good; nearly, he supposed, whole. If he could only stop thinking about his—No, not his. Not his, except in dreams. Just Rapunzel. Perhaps, if he could stop thinking of her two dozen times a day, he would have successfully gotten over the loss of her. And perhaps, if the voices would leave him be, he could go through life without the stinging blows they struck with near truths and half lies.

But at least he was home.


	15. Chapter 15

He didn’t shout at the man in his herb garden, not this time, but moved silently into his quarry’s blind spot. The figure in his garden didn’t sense him there, standing, watching, as he plucked carefully at tender roots.

“Bad luck, to steal from a mage’s garden.”

The boy—and he was a boy, Dórainn saw, not much older than ten, and certainly not the man he’d first taken him to be—jolted, and whirled to face him, still clutching the herbs in his fingers. His face was thin, and pretty in the sexless way of children. A mop of auburn curls tumbled into his mossy green eyes.

“I—It’s fer mah mum, sir, not mahself—is verra sick, she is, an’ goin’ tae ‘ave a baby, too.” The child’s eyes were wide, and terrified as he stuttered, his Common-tongue a strange mix of the lyrical burr of the Highlands that lay just over the Deibh Pigeán Mountains, and the broader, brisker tones that characterized the Northlands. “We—we canna pay fer ‘em, an’ the doctor said tha’ wit’oot em she’d—”

“Have you a name?” the mage asked, cutting off the frightened deluge of information. Not this again, he thought. Not this, not now. It was so soon, to see this pattern form again in Fate’s tapestry.

“T-Tàmhas MacNiall, sir. Tam.”

“Come with me, Tam, and bring those.” Dórainn turned, wondering if the boy would simply bolt, and walked back to the cottage. To his surprise, the boy followed, albeit with horrified dread written all over his face.

“What do you take with tea?” the mage inquired, deftly swinging the kettle on to the fire and closing the door behind the boy.

“H-ho-honey, sir, if—if’n t’isn’t too much trouble.” The boy stood like a stone, expecting to be blasted where he stood, perhaps, or turned to some particularly unpleasant form of life—or had his life-force confined to a glass bottle, or his blood sacrificed to the Greater demons, Dórainn thought, half-amused.

“Sit down there,” he nodded to the table and the single chair, and waited patiently until the boy had. From his customary place on top of a bookshelf, Kier watched, as haughty and dignified as ever—and as plump. “Your mother, you said, was ill and with child?”

Tam nodded.

“And the leech here is a joke,” the mage muttered to himself. He had seen evidence of the man’s ‘healing’—shoddy work at best, and a hindrance at worst for someone who actually knew what they were doing. The man, though, was deciding quickly that his services were no longer required by a village inhabited by a mage with considerable healing arts—his swiftly evaporating finances had proven that—and had already fled town, the mage had no doubt, having collected his price from young Tam that morning, taking with him his curious scent of chalky cheese and sulfur.

The boy shifted on his chair, looking uncomfortable—he hadn’t liked the thin, grey-colored man who’d come, but he _was_ a doctor, and Tam had been raised to respect healers.

“The doctor told you to get these, specifically?” Dórainn asked, lifting one of the less mangled plants. It was bright green, and lush with moisture, despite its rough handling.

Again, Tam nodded.

“This plant—sahba, we call it—is useless for your purposes,” Dórainn told him, and watched as Tam’s jaw dropped. “It’s pleasantly scented, when dropped into boiling water, and taste as it smells.” He demonstrated, pouring a bit of the boiling water into a bowl, before the rest went into the teapot. A sharp, sweet smell filled the air when he dropped a sprig of the plant in, before he set the bowl aside on the table. “It can be fermented into a very light, rather weak wine, if you have the patience for such things, chewed for pleasant breath, and, fed to cows in small amounts, will sweeten their milk. And it’s largely useless for anything else.”

“Bu’—bu’, he said—” dismay slid into the child’s face, with disillusioned anger not far behind.

“This,” Dórainn said, taking a small bundle of fresh-cut herbs from hook that hung from the beams of the ceiling, “is falláinn.” The plant was darker than the first, and spiky-looking. Its slightly musky smell was faint beneath that of its more attractive cousin. “Make a tisane of it, and have her drink three cups of it daily. You won’t need much, a few pinches will do for a kettle. It will make her more comfortable, and lower any fevers that might harm her, or the babe. Use it for three days—if she feels no better, come back. Use the sahba you’ve picked as well, after she’s taken the first.”

“Bu’ if i’s useless—” Tam started, his brow wrinkling in what the sorcerer now recognized as a child’s stubborn curiosity.

“It will do what it’s meant to, and that’s ease the bitter taste of the falláinn. Drink your tea,” he directed, pouring it, and pushing it in front of the boy. Then he slid a small jar of honey before him as well, and tried not to remember another child adding too much honey to too little tea. “And we will discuss payment.”

 

            _“Everathing ‘as a price, lad. Dinna let anaone tell ye otherwise—one way or’n other, there’ll be a price.” Truer words never were spoken, not to him. In magic, Dórainn had found, and in dealings with the various men and women he had met in his travels, there had always been a price. Some were easy to pay, others, less so._

            Keeping Rapunzel for the decade he had, after all, had cost him a heart.


	16. Chapter 16

Dawn came early for Rapunzel—hours earlier than was usual for her and any courtier that had spent most of the night at the King’s ball—but she didn’t feel those hours of sleep lost. Instead, excitement was streaming through her veins. Quietly, with the silent grace of a cat, she slipped from her bed and dressed in her old clothes without disturbing her maid.

She was good at silence—years of waking early to find Dórainn still asleep after a long night, if not more, without; and of slipping, on the rare occasion, down the tower stairs and past the big white dragon there, to revel in the freedom of the DarkForest just after dawn. That was when the Forest was safest, after all, when the nocturnal denizens were returning, pleasantly sated, to their dens, and the demons of the day were just emerging, tired-eyed and peaceful at the early hour. 

            It took less than five minutes to collect what she would take from her room, and another three to get down to the kitchens. The sleepy-eyed cooks there eyed her much as the demons of the forest had, half-annoyed by the intrusion of their domain, half-amused by her audacity. One of them—a huge, silent man with impressive biceps in a stained apron, who apparently went by the name Tadg—fixed her ‘picnic’, and waved her out of his way when she attempted to thank him. He was used to the strange whims of the Fancy, was Tadg. Besides, he figured, chewing silently on a small sliver of wood, she wouldn’t be coming back from wherever it was she was headed, so she might as well go on with a good meal in that basket.

The city was just beginning to stir—farmers were setting up stalls of produce and grains, bread was coming out of the baker’s ovens, the first whiffs of smoke were appearing in the blacksmith’s shops. She made her way through the streets, avoiding the herdsmen with their herds of sheep, goats, and cows that jammed squares, and the eyes of the constables who were too tired to care over-much about one more body, especially one that offered them no trouble, moving through the streets they guarded.

By the time the sun had cleared the horizon, she was outside the city’s walls, and heading east. To the tower she’d left, to the first clues to her past, and much more importantly, to her future.  

 

It took her the whole of the day to find the tower—what had been three hours by horseback became a long, confusing muddle of half-remembered trails and landmarks by foot. She saw demons, and other wildlife, but contrary to her apprehensions, none offered her harm.

But finally, as the sun began to sink below the horizon, she found it, and was astonished. It stood there, a spear of white, obscured by the vines and thorns of hearty briar roses. She remembered them—remembered them shooting out of the ground and gentling their headlong fall, hers and Caoin’s. But it seemed that in her absence, the roses had been left to run wild. The buds and leaves of spring were starting to unfurl, the older wood clinging wholeheartedly to the stones of the tower.

She pulled open the door at the base of the tower, felt the trickle of cold emptiness pour out. There was no dragon, huge and white, sprawled at the base of the winding stairs. She hadn’t expected him to remain, of course, but the lack still surprised her. Bereft of the familiar, she set about to climbing the hundreds of stairs in the dark of the windowless column. Around and around they went, dizzying, unless one knew the trick—to look only ahead, or at the stairs themselves. Never, ever down.

At last she came to the top, panting slightly, and grateful to be at the end. She put her hand on the latch, and was almost surprised when it lifted under her hand—was someone here, then, that it wasn’t locked? But no, she found, no one was in the tower. Only, surprisingly, ghosts. The table had remained, she saw, the same one she’d eaten at for ten years of meals, the same she’d learned her lessons on, and watched Dórainn work magic on. There was the faint lingering scent of the herbs he’d hung in the kitchen, though the plants themselves had been removed. There were still bookcases—a few of the books remained. Hers, she noted, wondering at the hurt that pierced bittersweet in her heart that he’d left them behind. He’d made them impervious to damage, of course, but to simply _abandon_ them…

But the art she’d put on the walls was gone.

She turned away, continued to wander the rooms she’d lived in for so long. Her room, she found, had also been left as it was. _Exactly_ as it had been; down to the white frock, lying neglected on the chair, and the rumpled sheets on the bed where she’d slept the night before the last. Had he cared so little? She wondered, lifting it absently. The material was still as soft as it had been when she’d first felt it, still as white, with the little flowers scattered like jewels across the snow of the linen. The tower was different, though. It was colder, and not entirely because of the lack of a fire in the cooling evening. Dreary, too, with dust. The spells he’d used to chase the dust away had been let go, and it had settled heavily. The aura of loneliness, of quiet despair had settled with the dust, as though the tower itself was in mourning.

And here, she saw, horrified. Here, right before the window, softened under the layer of dust but still lit by the dying sun, were the rusty stains of blood on stone. Not Caoin’s blood, nor hers, but his. Dórainn’s. Three droplets, three perfect circles, forming half of another circle. Magic, and though she was certain it had been unintentional on his part, strong magic. A protection on the tower, and a cycle prediction, left in blood.

There was more blood, now that she looked. More droplets scattered across the floor, from the window to the door. Still more by the table, where she didn’t know he’d sat to bind the wound. Rapunzel imagined she’d find plenty on the stairs, as well, if she went with a light to look. It made her angry, strangely, and horribly sad, to think of him hurt—not abstractly, as she had after finding the _Fuil bi aig Beathan_ , but seeing him as he was in her mind, brought to harm, with proof before her of his pain, and by someone she had trusted, invited into their lives. Would she have gone with Caoin, she wondered, if she’d known the sorcerer had been injured? Then, when the pain and anger of deception had been so fresh, after he’d frightened her so very badly?

No; she didn’t think so. Perhaps she only wanted to believed that she wouldn’t have, but the thought now of him being wounded and alone were abhorrent to her, especially when she didn’t know how badly he’d been injured.

She could do nothing for him now, though, nothing until she found him, so she put the anger and sorrow aside. Night had fallen, well and truly, outside. She tried the lights, found that they worked, rather dully. To give herself more light, she lit candles, and built the fire with the some of the firewood that still sat stacked in its holder. She didn’t intend to stay up long—she was tired from her early morning, followed by the hours of walking. But she wanted to look at his chamber before she retired. Perhaps there was a clue there, to his location, or to her past.           

She went up the short flight of stairs, holding the candle aloft. The flame flickered madly, sending shadows dancing across the stone walls. The door to his chamber stood slightly ajar, perhaps opened a bare inch, as though he hadn’t bothered to make sure it had closed all the way when he’d left. It opened to reveal the dark chamber she’d slept in once. The table still stood against the wall—devoid, now, of all books and the shaving kit. The chest at the foot of the bed was gone, as well. The bed was made neatly, as though he had never slept on it, and neither had she. And there were no daggers, sheathed or not.

The fireplace was bare of ash or kindling—only soot stains revealed that anyone had ever lived in the room. Soot stains, and the faint, lingering scent of him on the bed sheets—he had always smelled of magic and herbs and winter in the mountains. But there was no life, save for an enterprising family of field mice under the bed. And no clues, either, to send her on her way.

Discouraged, and discomforted to stay in this tomb of the happy home she’d known, she ate a small amount of the bread and smoked beef Tadg had given her—had he known, she wondered, that she was going on no picnic, but a journey?—and shook out the sheets of her bed. Tomorrow she would find the nearest town, and ask after the whereabouts of the Demon Mage…and, she thought, the ice dragon that had lived in the base of the tower for ten years. There weren’t many ice dragons in these parts—they were fiercely territorial creatures, with one full-grown male taking as much as a five-hundred-mile swath of land for himself. The females, of course, could take nearly double that, and were known to surround themselves with harems of four or five of the males. But as dangerous as dragons were, if Dórainn had trusted one, that dragon might very well know where she could find the sorcerer.


	17. Chapter 17

“The Demon Mage? Aye, Ah’ve heard o’ ‘im,” the farmer told her, frowning down at her in concentration from beside her on the high seat of the wagon. He’d come across her, walking down the road, and kindly offered her a ride into the village. “Who hasna, in these parts? He was through the town o’er—eh, aboot two years back? Fixed up mah cousin’s lad’s hoouse, right quick, an’ Jamie—he’s mah nephew, an’ the blacksmith o’er in Bàsadair—whell, ‘e did up the hooves o’ tha’ big horse o’ the mage’s.”

“Two years ago?” She fought to keep the dismay out of her voice.

“Aye. Saw ‘im mahself, there. Had a bonny pile o’ books wit’ ‘im, nows Ah’m thinkin’ aboot ‘t. Decent cove, Ah suppose, so long as ye dinna try tae cheat ‘im. A bit odd, but wot mage isna, eh?”

“Of course. Is he gone now, then?”

The farmer shrugged. “’e wanders aboot some, tha’ one. No’ of’en ‘e goes tae the same toown twice, ye ken? He was gone fer half o’ last year, but Ah heard ‘e’d just got back inta the area. Went up intae the mountains, ‘parently.”

“Isn’t it dangerous, in the mountains? I heard there was an ice dragon up there.”

“Oh, aye, there it. Ol’ Teine Òir. They won’t bother one another much—been toleratin’ each other fer years. An’ besides, young Alasdair kens wot he’s doin’.”

  “Young?” She blinked. Rapunzel knew of Dórainn’s various aliases—no mage spread his true name (she wasn’t sure, thinking about it now, if “Dórainn” was another alias or not) around. But while he had never looked _old_ , no one had ever referred to him as young, not in her hearing.

“Aye. ‘e’s only aboot forty, from what Ah figure. Prime o’ ‘is life, Ah guess, or mayhaps younger. They live a long time, mages, hundred years or more. All tha’ magic, ye ken.”

 

They arrived at the small town in good time, chatting amicably. The farmer sent her to a man who would sell her ‘a roight bonny nag, an’ fer cheap, tae’. Old James (Young Jamie’s much-esteemed father) showed her a hardy little pony, well-used to not-so-experienced riders, but with enough pluck to get her up the mountains. Rapunzel bought the little mare for half of the money she’d gotten for one of the necklaces in the city—a fair price indeed, if the creature could get her up the high, craggy Mór-bheannan mountain, where the ice dragon was known to live.

She departed later the same day, disregarding the concerned frowns of the townsfolk, her pony laden with supplies that had cost her more coin. She paid no mind to the murmurs—‘Poor lass, not quite right in th’ head”—and blithely continued on. The farmer she’d befriended had given her the dragon’s direction, as best he could, as reluctant as he was to tell her.

The going was tough—steep, rocky inclines, impassable piles of ice and stone that wouldn’t melt until high summer, if even then. Several times, Rapunzel was forced to rely solely upon the pony’s instincts and sense of direction to continue on—but the pony knew these mountains, and wolves rarely came so high in search of prey. She needed to worry only about the _cuir cat-fiadhaich_ who lived in these mountains, and the dragon himself. Rapunzel was forced to halt for night, and camped twice in the mountains, within the tiny glow of a small fire, the pony hobbled nearby, before she reached the signs she had searched for—the signs of an ice dragon’s residence. The high, rocky ledges perfect for taking off, the bare, trailing paths of a dragon wandering—the scent of magic and a dragon’s unique smell of dry serpent scales and of old, precious gold.

 

He knew she was coming, had known the moment she’d started her journey up his mountain. How she’d known precisely which mountain was his, he wasn’t sure—he’d long ago laid his own protective spells over the mountains that he guarded, among them charms to confuse and misdirect.

It annoyed him, her coming. Hadn’t she done enough, leaving that damnable mage the first time, without returning to make more trouble? To say nothing of the fact that Sorcha was here, finally, and with the little one too. He saw little of his mate-queen, even without the ten-year imprisonment in the tower—he was embarrassed to be more than fond of her, to have missed her fiercely in the time he hadn’t seen her. Her current dragonet was his, a brash little female who’d twisted him around her tiniest claw with the immediate ease her mother had done, two human centuries ago. She was Seileastáir, for the way her scales flashed gold in certain lights, and already half a century old. And now this bloody human female was going to invade, searching for the human mage she’d rejected.

He’d had it with these humans. Were they incapable of finding their own mates, and having found them, taking them? It seemed amazing to him that the species hadn’t died out, with the relative time it took for them to procreate. If all species took as long, the entire world would have gone barran eons ago.

“Thinking too hard,” Sorcha murmured in the language of their kind, nuzzling against his neck. She liked it about him—he did think, not just react with flame and claw like many others. But she knew him—Cináed would think to death whatever it was that bothered him, and he’d had plenty of time to do that during the last decade. Right now, she wanted his mind only on her.

He returned the touch, added to it the first step of a subtle dance of mating. She was delicate, long and slender and perfectly formed—the epitome of dragon femininity. And for tonight and every night she was here, she was his.    

 

The pony found the dragon’s lair first, and stopped dead in her tracks, her nostrils flared and skin quivering as though to shake off flies. She would go no farther, not even when Rapunzel got down, and attempted to lead the mare forward. Rapunzel couldn’t say that she blamed the animal, precisely, but she didn’t want to leave the poor creature out here, alone and unprotected.

“There’s an enclosure around back. You can take her there.”

Rapunzel jerked, her eyes darting up to the ledge above the cavern’s entrance. There sprawled a female ice dragon, the same silvery grey as the rocks she lay on, the hue of hoar-frosted stone.

“You wanted to speak with Cináed, didn’t you?” the dragoness inquired, rising and stretching in a way similar to that of a cat.

 “Y-yes. I did.”

“Good. Put the mare away, and come in. We’ve been expecting you.”

Rapunzel did as she was told, spending perhaps more time than the dragoness had meant insuring that the pony was comfortable, and gathering her courage while she did. She had walked the DemonForest, she reminded herself—but at dawn. This was a different matter entirely, walking into a den with not one but two full-grown dragons. But gather it she did, and it carried her back to the entrance and into the dragons’ lair.

 

 

“P-payment?” Tam stuttered. His green eyes had widened again.

“Payment,” the sorcerer agreed, calmly sipping his tea. “Every deed has a consequence.”

“Like—like wot?” the boy asked. His family had no money—it was him and Ma, and his baby brother and sister. Da had died last year—they had nothing of value left to trade for the herbs. He wasn’t apprenticed out, and had little hope of finding someone to apprentice him anyway. And at ten, no self-respecting man would take him on as a full-time worker.

“Once I demanded a man’s daughter for stealing herbs,” Dórainn told him quietly. “And I’ve given plants to another, asking only that his wife sew a shirt for me. I rarely work for gold—mostly services. For the moment, though, I think for you I must insist that you return here once your mother is well, and I will decide your payment then.”

Tam ducked his head in agreement, both relief and trepidation showing in his eyes.

“Then finish your tea, and return to your mother. And remember—if the falláinn doesn’t work in three days, come back and tell me. Do you understand?”

“Aye, sir. Thankee, sir.” He ducked his head again, and gulped his tea. “Gudbye, then, sir.” He said, before he dashed out, grateful to have made his escape.

He’d be back, though, the mage thought, sipping his tea again. There was a rough-hewn honor in the boy that was already surfacing, and under pressure.

 

“Where could she have gone?” Caoin asked his father, standing beside the King as they both stared at a map of the area. Beside the map was a scrap of paper, pinned to the parchment. Either of them could have recited it by now, they had both read it over so many times. _‘Don’t worry—I’m safe. I’ve gone away, and I’ll send word when I’ve found what I’m looking for.’_

Rapunzel was a favorite of the people, and the court’s darling. If it got out that she had been whisked away from under the royal family’s noses, Seòbhrach Rubha would be seen as weak—and it would suffer in its dealings with other cities.

But the city hadn’t held her, nor had she stayed in any of the villager’s homes. “To find her parents, perhaps?” Caoin persisted. He didn’t love Rapunzel—he was attracted, which was almost the same. But there was affection of sorts between them, and he wanted her to be safe.

“Or that bloody mage,” his father replied, glaring at the map as though it would tell him the location of the girl. Similarly, he held affection for the girl, a mild appreciation of her cool beauty and graceful manners. She would have been a good match for his son, would have made an excellent queen.

“Why would she go back to the mage? He held her captive in a tower for ten years.” Caoin could not conceive being tied to a single place for ten years, not unless it was Seòbhrach Rubha. To not be able to ride, to see and speak with people, to walk through grass and field, beneath trees—that was a type of Hell, he was sure.

“Perhaps she had affection for him. Perhaps he came and stole her back.” _Perhaps she was his lover, and had already born that mage-bastard a child. Perhaps she was fickle. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps._

“Cheann Sgaoilte said there was no sign of the Demon Mage’s magic in the castle, though,” the prince reminded.

“That mage is more than strong enough to hide such things, even from Sgaoile. It’s amazing to me that you managed to escape him unscathed, and with that _Fuil bi aig Beathan_ on your wrist.”

_And perhaps that mage is finally slowing down_ , the King thought uncharitably of the sorcerer. He hoped so. Long had the Demon Mage stood in the way of finishing the war with Murchadh—he had not been able to take over, not with so powerful a mage to guard against such things, nor had Murchadh allowed the war to end, wasting valuable materials and men. Nor would the thrice-blasted sorcerer allowed himself to be bought over to Seòbhrach Rubha’s side. Now, at last, the war was over—Murchadh’s son showed more sense than the old man had ever possessed. But his ire was not lessened.

“We must wait, I suppose, until the scouts return with news. Perhaps someone’s seen her outside the walls.”   


	18. Chapter 18

Fire the shade of gold buried beneath ice lit and warmed the cavern, roaring quietly in a hearth of crystal and dark stone. The walls were lined with crystals, the cave a giant hollowed-out geode, sending the light rebounding over and over itself again. She blinked against the sudden unexpected light, forced to pause where she stood until her eyes could adjust to the abundant illumination.

Some of the glare was cut with massive tapestries of velvets and silks, depicting various scenes from legend and myth. Carpets littered parts of the crystal floor—woven carpets, skins of beasts that had once lived and breathed, rag throw-rugs, all in a hodge-podge of warmth and decoration, some layered over the others. In the center, the dragon she sought crouched; flicking the tip of his long tail this way and that, as a far smaller version of himself launched itself after the weaving prize, as a kitten would. Teine Òir spared her no glance, though doubtless he knew she stood there, awkward and intruding on this picture of dragon child-rearing.

“I’ve not seen him for a half-dozen moon cycles,” came a rumbling growl, the dragon’s attention never wavering from the dragonet. But the baby dragon had lost interest in her—or his, perhaps? It seemed impossible to tell when the dragonet was so young that the spikes on its head were barely developed, and lacked the distinctiveness of a male or female—father’s tail-tip. Instead, the dragonet’s eyes had fixed on her—curiosity had the creature moving away from its parent towards her.

Rapunzel stilled, eyeing the little dragon warily. He—She? It?—was no larger than a deerhound, but…a dragon was a dragon, and dangerous for it.

“Seileastáir,” the larger dragon rumbled quietly. She—the name was feminine, after all, so it might be she—turned her head, attentive. “Behave.”

Flicking yellow eyes up to Rapunzel, he continued, with no small amount of pride; “My daughter. She’s young still, and curious with it.”

“She’s lovely.” And she was, for a dragon. Still young, as the dragon said, and with the gangly clumsiness of youth, but there was a hint of the long, slender dragon she would become, and her scales had a golden sheen to them, the same color as her large slanted eyes, that occasionally showed instead of the normal silvery white of her kind.

“Yes, she is.”

The baby dragon gave an oddly musical trilling noise, as though to agree, and promptly began to lean against Rapunzel, nuzzling affectionately against her hip. She looked down, not quite sure what to do, and tentatively rested a hand on Seileastáir’s head. The dragonet trilled again, and trotted back to her father, chattering in a language of clicks, trills, and purr-like rumbles. He answered in kind, and the little dragon dashed past Rapunzel, out of the cavern.

“You came to inquire as to the location of the mage, I presume?”

She returned her attention to Teine Òir. “I did, yes.”

“Why?”

“I—” She blinked, startled by the question. “Excuse me?”

“Why do you want to know where he is?” the dragon elaborated, easing down onto his side, and watching her with lazily half-lidded eyes. “I was under the impression you wanted naught to do with him.”

“He has answers to questions I have,” she stated, and wondered why she felt the need to justify herself.

“Questions you couldn’t have asked in the ten years you lived with him?” Teine Òir asked. There was just a hint of antagonism in his words, just a bit of heat in his eyes.

“N-no. I didn’t know—” she stopped, deliberately, and started again. “I didn’t know then what I know now. I have questions now I want answers to. If you won’t help me, I’ll find him myself.” _Somehow_.

“Regardless of whether or not he wants to see you,” the dragon rumbled sourly. “Perhaps he left the tower because he had closed that part of his life?”

“He owes me answers—that, if nothing else. When I have them, I’ll leave, and he can go back to whatever new life he desires,” she retorted.

The dragon was silent for a long moment, then, with a click of teeth, “You’ll want to go to Roarke. If anyone knows where he is, it will be Roarke. You can find him east and south of here, about ten days away—for you. There is a forest—the Stag’s Wood. He lives at the center, beside the Lake of Glass.”

“Thank you,” she said, and nodded her head farewell.

The dragon snorted irritably, and rose to follow her out into the daylight. “Keep your thanks. I don’t want them.”

* * *

 

“It was a kind thing, what you did,” Sorcha murmured, watching the girl go on her little pony, and leaning against her consort.

“She hurt him once,” he growled in return, accepting her weight with the ease of one long used to their partner. “I don’t doubt she’ll hurt him again, unconsciously or no. Let Roarke deal with her.”

“And I imagine he hurt her, as well, unconsciously or no. She loves him.”

Cináed turned his head, a frown darkening his eyes. “She doesn’t. Why would she have left in the first place, if she loved him?”

“Anger, perhaps,” the female murmured. “Perhaps she didn’t know her own feelings until she was separate from him. She is very young, even for a human. But perhaps this time they will not hurt one another.”

“She’ll hurt him, when she leaves again. You never saw his eyes,” the dragon rumbled quietly. The anger was draining away, leaving gloomy regrets. “When he watched her go.”

* * *

 The rest of the money from the first necklace went into buying more provisions. The Stag’s Wood was more than ten days away by pony, and she didn’t know how deep into the forest she would have to travel to find this Roarke person. And it was dangerous enough for a traveler to require extra supplies. Not all of the streams there would be safe, nor should she eat much of what she would find. But if she could find her way through, to the Lake of Glass, to meet this Roarke, it would be worth it. There was a certain urgency—she couldn’t explain it, not even to herself why she felt as though she had to hurry. To find him, to see him.

Dórainn.

She had so many questions—so many more now than when she’d left Seòbhrach Rubha. Why had he taken her? Why had he raised her there, in the tower, as a friend-father? Why had he left behind her things, abandoned the books and their home, seemingly without a single backwards glance?

And what had the dragon meant, that she would find him whether he wanted her to or not? She would, of course, but why would he not want to see her? She was no threat to him—indeed, how could she be? He was the stronger of them, the stronger of most.

_Dórainn_. It was, she thought, an odd name. Was it one of the many he would have taken and used? Mages took names and shed them with equal ease—a name, used for any length of time, was a source of power to be used against one. And yet, why would he take one so…morose? He baffled her—she’d lived with the man for ten years, and still she knew little about him. Honorable, yet he had kidnapped her. Kind, yet he had turned on her when she’d dared to question. Not that she would let him do that again.

_Dórainn_ , she thought again, frustrated. _Sorrow_. Why sorrow? What had happened, for that name to become a part of his life?

Perhaps in addition to sending her on, this Roarke could sate some of the sharp curiosity that gnawed at her. With that thought, she turned the pony east, and south, toward Stag’s Wood.

* * *

“Anything?” The King inquired, looking out over his city from the bay of expensive glass windows that stood behind his desk.

“No, M’lord. Nothing.”

“And Cheann Sgaoilte has seen nothing?”

“Only trees, milord, and mountains.”

“Which mountains? These mountains, different mountains? Were there distinctive landmarks?” Now the king turned, pinned the messenger, a junior clerk, with a regal, icy look.

“I’m sorry, my lord, no.” The messenger quelled the shiver that had run down his spine—his King was a good one, and just. But the King had no patience for fools and incompetents, and unless the girl was found, _he_ would be the one who would be judged both.

“I see,” Rìoghainn murmured, turning back to the windows. “Carry on, then.”


	19. Chapter 19

He woke gasping, as hard as stone, reaching for a woman who would never be there. Sleep clearing from his eyes, his hands having not found the mate they’d sought, he sat up, swung out of the bed to stalk into the main room. Cold moonlight poured in through windows of glass, and though the spring evening was appropriately warm, the floor was icy beneath his feet and gooseflesh prickled his skin.

He didn’t bother with clothing, or even shoes, but strode out into the night, where a chill mountain stream babbled its way through the forest down the mountains not twenty feet from the rear of his home.

It was cold, bitterly cold, straight from the ice melts up-mountain. But he’d wanted it icy, bitingly frigid, to chase away the fever of need. It did its duty admirably—any heat stole away within moments.

He went back to the cottage, ignoring Muir when the horse lifted his head from his midnight grazing and whickered inquisitively. The cat greeted him in typical late-night cat fashion, with wide, accusing eyes, as if to say, how dare you intrude upon the night?—and wound briefly around his ankles, until he discovered they were wet, and sprang away with a hiss of disgust.

Now he bothered with clothes, just the long black robe, simply to cut the chill that had now settled into his bones and shuddering his skin. There wouldn’t be any more sleep tonight—not in the bed, certainly, and perhaps not even in the chair by the fire. Instead he would fill his night with reading, or he would begin to work the magic for the protective amulet one of Rìoghainn’s nobles wanted for his daughter, and a second amulet, for the girl to give to…her.

What he wouldn’t do, and quite deliberately, would be to scry in the fire, or in the basin that sat undisturbed on one of the shelves. Nor would he let himself remember, or look to the boxes that sat, spelled to withstand all aging, in the loft above.

A frown lit briefly upon his narrow, tired face as a flick of magic against his mind alerted him someone had entered the mild boundaries of his land, and he stood to go and dress properly, tunic and trousers beneath the robe, belted with leather. He left off the daggers he sometimes wore—he anticipated no battle of steel, and instead gathered herbs into a bundle.

“Sir! M’lord!” A fist pounded desperately against his door. “Please, m’lord, open—” Tam’s plea cut off as the door opened abruptly, and the sorcerer stood before him, bundle of herbs in hand.

“How far away do you live?”

“T-three miles, sir. T’is—t’is me ma—” The boy was gasping, curled around himself, trying to speak and drag in air simultaneously. 

“Yes. Come, we’ll take Muir.”

“Sir?” Tam’s quavering reply came. He didn’t quite know what he’d expected the mage to do now that he’d gotten here, but—who was Muir?

The mage, however, had already headed around the side of the cottage. Tam, stifling a yelp of terror, dashed after him.

The mage hadn’t bothered with a saddle—only the huge, pitch-black stallion’s bridle. Tam gasped at the sight of the animal, and gasped again when the sorcerer leaped nimbly onto the horse’s bare back, then reached down and caught him easily by the arm. Perhaps the man was simply far stronger physically than he looked, or perhaps he’d used magic, but Tam nearly flew up, and onto the horse before the mage.

“Hold on,” the mage warned, and tapped his heels to the courser’s side. The boy’s breath caught painfully in his throat as the horse leapt forward, a smooth surge of power beneath him that flung him back against the sorcerer as he scrabbled to catch onto some of the horse’s thick, wiry mane.

But the black’s long legs and swift, strong gallop ate up the ground, hurtling them through the woods along the grown-over path at a speed that Tam could never have imagined. Within what seemed only seconds, and couldn’t have been more than minutes, they had arrived there, before the hut he resided in with his mother and Eleanor and Daniel. His legs were shaking so badly when he slid down that his knees would have crumpled, had the mage not caught him handily by the back of his rather ragged shirt.

“Walk Muir for me, until he’s cool. Do you understand?” Piercing grey eyes met dazed green ones.

“Mah mum—”

“Will be alright. Walk the horse, don’t let him stand. When he’s cool, tie his reins to the fence, and then you may come in. Not a second sooner, understand?”

“Aye, sir.”          

“Good.” The mage turned, and walked calmly into the dwelling, sure that the boy would do as he’d asked.

Before him was a scene he’d witnessed before—a broken family, deeply in debt and falling apart when the remaining adult took ill. But she was still responsive enough, despite her illness, to recognize him, and for the fearful awe to jump to her dull green eyes.

“Oh—what has tha’ lad gotten us intae?” she murmured distraughtly. “I dinna ken wot t’is ye want, Lord, bu’ we’ve naught ‘ere tae—”

“Your health, madam, is what I’ve come about.” He moved quietly and efficiently, setting down the bundle he’d brought with him on the table, and shifting chairs away from the bedside, out of his way. Two young children watched him from where they sat, in a corner with pallets that could be hidden from view with a length of cloth looped over twine hung from the ceiling, with big, wary eyes that had already seen too much. “For now, that is all you must worry about.” He stood a moment, looking around at what he had to work with—a kettle presumably full of water hung in the fireplace, and the tiny place was as scrupulously neat as the mother had obviously worked to keep it, regardless of illness and her burgeoning pregnancy. They had little enough, but it would do, at least for this. He had worked in worse conditions before.

He could see the chills that racked her, long shudders that trembled down her body. “What hurts?” he inquired softly, laying a hand on her brow to test her temperature. He found it high.

“M’head,” she murmured back, “an’ m’ belly.”

“But not due to the child.”

“Nay, Ah dinna think t’is.”

“Relax, then, and I’ll take a look.”

Slowly, warily, her eyes slid closed, and her tense body loosened. Dórainn channeled a small amount of power to his hands, through them and into her, searching out the illness. It was there, dark and cruel, fed by the weakness of childbearing and sorrow. The child, however, was doing well, growing at the normal speed and not suffering badly from the illness as its mother’s body fought first for it, and then herself. He let the contact break after that assessment, and turned to the bundle he’d brought, and began choosing the herbs he wanted, preparing them with water or with mortar and pestle or with magic as he needed.

He could have used the magic to take the disease out of her body entirely. It was an option he had still. But the practice was dangerous—the magic might harm the child she carried, and the death of her unborn child would do no good for her at all. Certainly, it would take hours of intense concentration, and exquisite control on his part to pull all of the remnants from her into him—it was not something he would willingly risk on a miserly two hours of sleep, when he would be left helpless and weak as the illness raged its way through him and away—especially when his patient might need more than the simple removal of the disease to help her. So he chose the herbs instead. If she showed no improvement for them, however, he would do what he had to. 

Halfway through, Tam came in, face pale and drawn with fear.

“Wash up,” the mage instructed, without looking up from his work. “Thoroughly.”

Dórainn looked him over a moment when the sounds of washing and drying hands had stopped, and waved him forward, gave him instructions on what to chop, which to bring to a boil, how to grind something into appropriate fineness, then how all three would be mixed.

“You’ll drink this,” the sorcerer said, helping the woman sit up. “It will taste bitter, and it will make your head spin for a moment. It won’t harm the baby,” he promised, seeing her hand cover the mound of her stomach protectively. “But it will ease the pain, and fight the illness.”

She took it obediently, coughing a bit over the taste, but drinking the whole of it without complaint. Within minutes, the spinning of her head stopped, and already she began to feel better than she had felt in days, and she said as much, with a hint of awe in her voice. Tam’s eyes widened on him, amazement shining in the green orbs that dominated his little face.

“You should take it for three days—it will take at least that long to fight off the disease completely. And you must stay in bed.”

She frowned. “Bu’—”

“No ‘but’s,” the sorcerer said sternly. “You need bed rest, or the illness could hold to you for weeks more.”

She blanched, and nodded. “Ah’ve a friend who kin come an’ ‘elp th’ children.”

The mage nodded. “Good. You have falláinn enough now to last you a week—twice a day, when you wake in the morning, and before you sleep after the evening meal. And the _sahba_ after it, to cut the taste. Tam knows how to prepare both. I will return in three days to check on you again. If you have need, send Tam, and I will come. Until then, you will get plenty of rest, plenty of non-alcoholic liquids—no ale, no wine. No whiskey, obviously.”

“Ah should think no’,” she replied indignantly, showing for the first time the spirit suggested by her son’s actions.

“Fresh milk is good, or clean water. I can give you a tisane, for after you’ve finished with the others. It will help protect the babe.” _And you_ , he thought, _but you’ll worry more for the child than yourself, won't you?_

“Oh, thank ye so much, sir. T’is kind ye are, really.” Gratitude lit green eyes, easing some of the lines worry and pain had put in her once-pretty face.

“When it suits me,” he allowed, containing the grimace that always fought to surface when gratitude was expressed, and nodded his farewell to the woman and her children.

It was just after dawn when he left, to return to his cottage, and the memories that awaited him. Muir whickered, butting at him. The horse was no doubt tired and bound to be sore, racing a distance of nearly four miles without warm-up or warning. Tam had cooled him, of course, but still, Muir wasn’t as young as he used to be.

“We’re getting old, you and I,” the sorcerer murmured, rubbing a hand up the horse’s broad face, scratching where he knew Muir liked him to, between the eyes. He remembered a time, not so very long ago, when he could have gone days without sleep, and never felt the loss, or taken every scrap of illness out of a person and suffered only a day or two for it—now it would take twice or three times that, and he was tired after two days’ little rest. The magic, at least, was as strong within him as ever, and it slowed the crush of time, but he could almost feel the gradual graying of his hair, the gentle press of time and harsher press of tension on his still-strong shoulders.

The horse snorted at him, drawing his head away in apparent disagreement.

“Alright, I’m getting old,” he permitted, vaulting up again. “You’re as young and spritely as ever.” A light squeeze with his legs, and the gentlest of pressures on his mouth brought the horse around to the north and sent him off at a far more sedate pace than the one he had used to come here.


	20. Chapter 20

Meanwhile, Rapunzel woke beside a dying fire as dawn’s pale fingers were beginning to appear in the sky. She had learned, and learned quickly, that it was far safer to have the fire than to go without it, even in the surprising warmth of the evenings here, only ten days south of the DeibhPigeánMountains she’d lived in or around all her life. Fire kept away the small demons that like to plague travelers alone—the darklings, the demons that took the forms of other, less magical beasts, the will-o’-the-wisps that would hover as they fed on an unwary person’s life-force. As another precaution, she had—clumsily, and without nearly the full amount of power a proper mage or witch could summon—cast a warding circle around herself and the pony. It would keep the low-level demons out, and the biting insects, but no more—it wouldn’t even hide her from someone trying to scry her out.

She stood, and stretched, yawning. The pony looked up briefly, and then returned to cropping at the stunted grass. Rapunzel kicked sandy dirt over the embers of the fire, and began rolling the lightweight travel pallet into a small bundle. A piece bread and some cheese was her swift breakfast, eaten in quick bites as she tacked up and mounted the pony. It was a routine they were both starting to get used to, just as Rapunzel was getting used to breakfast without hot tea, the inability to bathe every day, and the silence that hung thick and menacing in the forest.

She put it out of mind and gave the pony a nudge with her heels, setting off with the rising sun on her left side, slightly to her back as she moved south and east. Hours would pass in unsettling silence, and the miles would roll out and be left behind.

The wall stopped her. It was old, of grey mountain stone, and well overgrown with vines and moss. Stones here and there were missing, some crumbled to dust, others fallen out to litter the forest floor with great cubes of dark grey rock. Too high to be jumped, even if she had the skill, too long stretching in either way to be gone around, with what provisions she had left in her pack. She had another day’s worth, perhaps, and no more than that.

A flash of white from beyond the wall drew her attention. A stag, massive, and white as snow, with a magnificent rack, for all it was early spring and he shouldn’t have had antlers at all, stood watching her intently. Not a demon—it didn’t have the eyes of a demon, and only the very powerful demons could hide their glowing, oddly shaped eyes. So powerful a demon wouldn’t have taken the form of a white stag, not when they could have taken the form of a person instead. Besides, there was a collar around its neck, fine, pale golden leather against its white pelt,  embroidered through with silver thread.

The Stag watched her for a moment, decidedly unstag-like in character before turning to the south on his side of the wall. He took a few steps, then looked back, his too-direct eyes pinned on her. A movement of his great head, like a nod to go forward, made her blink. Frowning, she steered the pony in that direction, willing to follow, at least for now. Everyone knew that most mages had a familiar of some sort—perhaps this stag was Roarke’s.

Within minutes, they found a hole in the wall—what the Stag must have been trying to lead them to. He came closer—not much, not within touching range, but then, she wouldn’t have touched him anyhow—and dipped his head low, almost like a bow. Then he turned again, looking back as though to be sure she would follow, and walked into the forest. Wary, wondering if she was making the right choice, she followed. 

* * *

 

For the whole of that day, she followed the Stag up a gradual incline, slowly winding up an elderly mountain, occasionally checking their direction against the meager knowledge of woodcraft she did possess. He disappeared again into the brush that evening, leaving Rapunzel no choice but to set up her camp, and build her little fire. The pony got her usual double-handful of _arbhar—_ the lightweight cereal grain of the area _—_ whileRapunzel chewed on dried meat and a small portion of bread.

That was the night the wolves came, prowling at the edge of the weak circle she’d erected before settling down. The whites of the pony’s eyes shone in the weak light of the fire, while she’d held the mare’s halter and spoke soothingly; gripping the small dagger she’d bought among the other supplies. The wolves had circled for several minutes, pushing at the boundaries of the circle, and had finally given up to go for easier prey. She hoped that the Stag, as unnatural as he was, was not that prey.

The next morning, it was clear that the Stag had not fallen to the wolves, for he appeared at her campsite as she readied the pony for another day of travel and stood waiting patiently while she finished her preparations. And when she was ready, he led the way through the forest, navigating the best way through one of the swamps that littered the Woods, and finally, while the sun slipped behind the mountains to the west, to the clearing where the Lake of Glass lay. On the far side, there was a building of grey-green stone.

Long and squat, the building swooped and curved with a myriad of different rooflines and towers, different sections in different styles from that of the earliest invaders to something similar in form to what Seòbhrach Rubha was built in. There were towers the rose up above the level of the trees, doorways that spread wide enough to admit three horses and their riders. Gargoyles scowled down, and arches soared in an eerie hodge-podge of architecture.

At the top of the entrance stairs, before tall wooden doors, stood a man wearing black, his hair the color of fire and blood, streaming down his back. This, she was certain, was Roarke. He looked nothing like his protégé, save for the aura of mage magic that lay lightly on his face, purple-tinged, and a similarity in their body-types—long and slender with strong shoulders and beautiful hands. There was little resemblance around the face—his was handsome in a way Dórainn’s was not, his nose aquiline and straight, where her mage’s was a blade of a nose, with a slight bump in it where it had broken and healed. Roarke’s cheekbones were high and clean cut, but Dórainn’s were higher and sharper, with intriguing little hollows beneath them that could make him look almost wicked. Their eyes differed as well, Roarke’s black as ink, Dórainn’s icy grey, and their mouths—this mage’s was the type that could smile or scowl or go soft or hard in a moment, and the other’s were far less mobile, more inclined to stay a neutral line, or kick up at a corner into a baffling little smirk.

Nevertheless, there was a resemblance that went deeper, she saw, dismounting, as Roarke walked down the stairs and moving towards her and the Stag, who stood a bit away from her. In the way they both moved, lithe and controlled with the smooth gait of a snow cat—in their clothing choice, the long robes worn over fighter’s garb of trousers and tunic, in their eyes, with beyond-mortal knowledge and a sort of innate wariness in them. And, she found as she head was forced to tilt back to meet his eyes even as he stood beside the Stag, they were both uncommonly tall.

With no warning, the Stag turned and walked away, and the redheaded mage moved toward her. His eyes were….less than welcoming, but curious, nonetheless.

“Ye’d be th’ lass, then. Rapunzel, are ye nae?” His accent was another thing that separated teacher from student—his was thick, different from the dialects of the Deibh Pigeán Mountains. Rougher, broader, somehow. And lilting, oddly, though that was more his voice than his accent, it seemed.

“I am.” She answered past the lump in her throat that was her heart. If this man refused to tell her where Dórainn was, the delay would be huge. She might never find him—and this man could go one further in ensuring that she would never find him: he could send her completely in the wrong direction.

“Stable yer pony, lass. We’ll ‘ave words once ye an’ she’ve eaten. Ye look aboot tuckered oot, the both o’ ye, an’ Ah dinna ken tha’ Dór would appreciate ‘t over-much if’n Ah were tae tell him ‘is lass fainted from exhaustion straight-way.”

She blinked, understanding perhaps one in three of the mage’s words. But she followed him to where the stable, another long building that sat low to the ground and looked far too tall from the inside, lay. The mare’s comfort was seen to, with a long grooming, hot bran mash and enough straw scattered about the floor of the stall as to make a fair bed. She seemed unaccustomed to such finery, for she snorted at it briefly, before settling down to the mash like the pragmatic mare she was.

Then came time for her comfort. Roarke led her to a long, long room with a ceiling that disappeared up into the gloomy shadows, where a small table was set up beside a crackling fire in a huge grate. The food he served her was simple—a thick meat stew of some sort, with grainy, chewy bread, and a pot of good tea—and delicious. He watched her dig in with some amusement, eating his own portion more slowly, if with no less enthusiasm.   

“Ye’ve come fer Dórainn, if Ah’m nae mistaken. Aye?” Roarke asked, when she’d sat back, replete.

“He’s here?” she demanded, suddenly alert, suddenly tense as a drawn bowstring. Rapunzel couldn’t quell the excitement that almost had her out of her chair, ready to see him, now, immediately, as soon as possible.

“Nay, nae anamore. Ye’ve missed ‘im, by aboot a fortnight.” He could see, though, what about the girl had caught the heart of his dour student. She was bright and optimistic, things that would have drawn the lad’s eye, as well as beautiful. Trusting, to have believed him so quickly—that, he knew, would have been a must, for Dórainn would never allow himself to trust without repeated demonstrations that he was first trusted. Independent, to have come so far alone without aide, and fiercely determined—both good, necessary things in a woman, especially one who would be the wife of a mage. A match for Dór in will, he didn’t doubt, or the boy would never have fallen for her. And she was well able to hurt him, as demonstrated. Perhaps even that was a good thing; it was an indication that Dórainn loved her, enough to try, perhaps, if she would reach out.

Did the lass have equal feelings for his old apprentice, as Sorcha suggested, was the question now, or was this a whim, or something different completely? He’d find out, damned if he didn’t.

Some of the excitement that had filled her drained away with the disappointment. “Where is he now?”

Roarke watched her quietly, with eyes that weren’t amused, as they had been a moment before, but curiously flat. “Ah dinna think Ah’ll tell ye tha, yet. Ye’ll tell me first why’t came aboot tha’ ye’ve tae search fer ‘im, when ‘e lived wit’ ye fer ten years an’ seemed loath tae end the arrangement.”

“It was…more of an accident than a choice. No, really,” she insisted, seeing the doubt in his eyes. “I hadn’t intended to leave, not then.”

“Nay? Whell, perhaps ye mean tha’,” he said, rising to refill his mug from the pot that sat stewing between them. He raised it and one fiery brow, silently offering her more. She nodded, and thanked him, and they settled in silence again, she shifting to a neatly feminine position on her chair, feet and dress tucked effortlessly to the side of her body, completely at ease.

 It surprised him, that she could be silent and still. She was young—if she’d reached her twentieth birthday, he’d have to find a hat, and eat it—yet she had mastered the art of quiet.

Though, he speculated, with Dórainn as a teacher, it may well have been a survival technique—the younger mage had not only mastered quiet, but written the tome guiding future generations, to the point where even he, never overly talkative, could grow irritated with the lack of sound his student lived in.

He heaved a sigh, and unbent slightly. “’e was a lad when Ah met ‘im. Aboot seven. Ah’m nae sure ‘e knew ‘is own age.” Roarke seemed older now, leaning back in his chair, his gaze on the fire without seeing it. The firelight caught upon silver threads in his fiery hair, showed a few faint lines by his eyes and mouth.

“’e was strong, devilishly strong, even then. An’ far tae controlled, fer such a lad.” He frowned at the fire. “’is father’d taken tae smackin’ ‘im around fer the magic in ‘im.”

Roarke’s attention snapped up to her when he heard her gasp, eyes hard as black ice. “Oh, aye, there’s still pockets o’ hatred fer such as us. T’was in such a place tha’ ‘e was raised. Twenny people died, when ‘is magic finally burst oot, an’ whell they deserved ‘t, fer—” he stopped, scowling as he realized the tale had begun to pour out of him.

“Ye’ve quite a pair o’ ears on ye, ‘aven’t ye?” the mage muttered, a speculative look beginning to gleam in his eyes as annoyance faded away. _Whell, damn me_ , he thought, _if Cináed’s mate hasna outwitted us all. The lass is in love wit’ him, after all—t’is right there, isn’t it, in ‘er eyes._

The knowledge of that, and the knowledge that—if the two of them managed to work things out properly (and knowing his dunderhead of a student, it would be in no way easy)—Dórainn would have her wedded before a sennight was out; was nearly enough to assuage the irritation he felt at losing twenty gold _airgead_ to Sorcha. As though the bloody dragoness needed more of his gold.

“’e’d nae thank me fer tellin’ ye tha’, Ah’m thinkin’,” he said, wondering if she’d ask further.

“No, he wouldn’t, would he?” she replied. The horrified fury that had been in the girl’s eyes for the child turned to anger with the man. “He would have happily kept me ignorant.”

“Ah, whell, lass,” Roarke muttered. There was plenty of misery in her eyes, too, side-by-side with the anger, and he had a need in him to chase it away, if only briefly. “Ah only eva taught ‘im mage-craft. Ah cannae be blamed fer ‘is lack o’ savvy wit’ females, lassie.” He shook his head in mock sadness, as though the failing of his protégé was a personal failing. It was just enough; she smiled faintly. Then he could let the amusement fade from his face. “Bu’ t’is a hard thing, ye ken, speakin’ o’ wot ye’d rather neva remember tae the one’s ye love. Harder, when yer nae sae sure ye’re nae tae blame.”

Leaving her to muse that over, he stood. “Yer bedroom is just doawn the hall, second on th’ left, when ye want tae retire. G’night, lass.”

“Goodnight,” she replied, now watching the fire, while the mage took his leave with a slight smile on his face. It was nearly an hour before she finally stood and went to her own bed.

* * *

The morning dawned bright and clear, with the chirping of birds loudly, easily heard through the window that had been opened before she’d woken, presumably by the same mysterious forces that had once opened the various windows of the tower, kept dust from layering up, kept the great stone tower from becoming drafty and cold during the bitter Northlands winters.

She rose, and dressed, and began the battle with her hair—even braided, sleep could loosen the braid and tangle the fine strands into a vicious Gordian tangle if she didn’t brush it every morning and evening. Loop by loop, the plait fell away until it rained freely over her shoulders and down to her waist in a long golden waterfall of silk. But the brush, when it went through that waterfall, snagged on the first snarl and tugged cruelly. Gritting her teeth, she fought with it, until finally the lot of it lay quietly smoothed, to be braided again and tied off with a length of twine.

That task completed, she left the room she’d used, heading towards the long hall she’d dined in the evening before. There was Roarke, lounging easily in one of the chairs by the fire, his long legs stretched out before him, dangling a large mug of tea in his lean fingers and contemplating the fire, as her—as Dórainn sometimes had. Perhaps he could read something in the flickering depths that she could not, perhaps he gazed at it only for lack of something better. A sideboard, loaded with far more food than she or the mage could ever eat in a sitting, stood against the wall nearby, though nothing had stood there the night before.

“Ah dinna ken what row t’was tha’ drove ye away from ‘im, but naow tha’ yer keen tae go back, there’s some ye aught tae know,” the redheaded mage said, never looking up. “Git’ yerself some breakfast, an’ Ah tell ye what Ah ken. T’is a fair bet he never will—tell ye, tha’ t’is, or not all o’ ‘t—an’ t’will help yer cause if’n ye’ve some ken o’ what ye’ve tae overcome tae win the lad’s trust agin.”

She did as she was told, perplexed by this unexpected generosity, but not daring to question it—not yet, anyway.

“T’will be patient work, anaway—he doesna trust easy, an’ ye’ve ‘urt him well enough. Ah dinna doubt ye didna mean tae, lass,” he added, sparing her a glance at last, and seeing the surprise and dismay on her oval-shaped face. “’E’s proud—ana man is, tae some extent. Ye’ve hurt ‘im once, looking as to be throwin’ ‘t’all away, an’ pride an’ fear willna let ‘im be near sae easy wit’ ye as ‘e once was.”

“I didn’t know I could hurt him.” The knowledge that she could, and had, produced a roil of conflicting feelings that knotted tightly in her belly. It was more imperative than ever to see him now.

“Lass, ana child kin rip out the heart o’ their parent, an’ ana lover kin do the same—ye’ve the bad luck tae have been both. An’ he neva was any gud at sayin’ wot he was feelin’—locks ‘t’all inside, neva lets ‘t out. Made ‘t a bloody nightmare tryin’ tae teach ‘im tae spar, Ah'll tell you—he’d never say when it ‘urt,” the mage imparted with a scowl. “’E was always quiet—by nature an’ cause tha’ bastard would beat ‘im if ‘e eva made tae much noise.”

His eyes widened abruptly in alarm. “Dinna ye go weepy on me naow,” he warned, the slightest hint of panic creeping into his voice. He might like women, appreciate them for their very femininity, but like many men, their tears made him feel like the lowest of worms, deserved or not.

“T’is over, aye, an’ he’s not sae much the worse fer ‘t, not as he could be. Aye, tha’s better. Here,” he muttered, handing over a handkerchief he’d discretely summoned. He grimaced a bit at his own weakness, scanning her face for any sign of returning tears. Seeing none, he continued, cautiously.

“As Ah may’ve said, Ah found him when he was aboot seven. Jist a wee lad, layin’ inna charred field, wit’ twenny bodies layin’ around ‘im, all deader ‘n Beathan’s ghost. They were tryin’ tae kill ‘im, an’ his magic came straight out an’ turned it back on ‘em, instead.” He lifted his mug, as though to use the tea to wash the foul taste of the tale from his mouth, and looked disgruntled when he was forced to stand and pour himself more. “Sae, fer the short of 't, Ah brought him here, an’ taught him tae use the power in him. He was the first.”

His head turned, and he pinned her with one long look. “Ye’ll ‘ave tae force ‘t oot o’ ‘im, woteva ‘is feelin’s are—‘e won’t give ‘em up easy. If’n ye kin make ‘im loose ‘is temper, they’ll come oot, but t’ll take a bit o’ doin’.”

She nodded. “I need to find him first.”

“Aye. Whell, le’mme git ye a map.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long time between updates. Life intruded, unfortunately.

Three explosive sneezes wracked him, rocking him forward, bending him double. His hand had come up to cover his mouth instinctively, protecting his patient from whatever tiny particles of disease might live benignly in him. She looked up at him, surprised.

“Yer alright, m’lord? No’ catchin’ a cold, are ye?”

“No,” he replied, going and washing his hands in the bucket of clean water with the rough soap he’d insisted on for just that purpose. “I’m fine.”

“Someone’s talkin’ aboot ye, then,” she said, citing local superstition.

“Perhaps,” Dórainn replied, wiping his hands dry on a clean towel.

“A bonny lass, mayhaps?” she hinted. A bonny lass, she thought, would be just the thing to take the sadness from those grey eyes. But she must have misjudged, for they went darker, sadder.

“No, not a lass.”

And that seemed to be the end of it, for he refused to say anything more on the subject, instead questioning her about how she felt. Perhaps he’d had one and lost her, she decided, and allowed him to draw her attention away.

Tam’s mother was recovering rapidly, and chafing to get up. There was too much to do, too little money to survive on, for her to being laying a-bed when she felt well enough to be up and about, doing those things. But the sorcerer had been adamant, and her friend Beth had seemed willing to cook and clean without asking anything in return.

“Beginning tomorrow, you may get up—provided you do not overwhelm yourself,” Dórainn said quietly, packing up his bundle of herbs again. “You’re on the mend, the child is fine. Don’t push your body to any great feats too quickly, or you will succumb to illness again, and far along as you are, your body will try to protect the you first, then your baby. Have you spoken with the midwife?”

“Aye. She kens o’ it.”

“Good.” He made a strange gesture. “Luck, for the baby, and I will take my leave of you, madam.”

“Oh, but—m’lord, yer, ah—payment.” She looked very uncomfortable, as though she was worried it sounded rude.

“It was your son who sought my aid. He will tender the payment.”

Her green eyes, so like her son’s, widened. “M’lord, ‘e is only ten—surely—”

“He will come to no harm, madam, I promise you. Tam has already agreed to pay the consequence.” His lips quirked marginally at one corner, though the small smile didn’t seem able to bring any light into his eyes. “Besides, he needs a trade, does he not? He will learn leech-craft with me, so that he may replace the so-called doctor that had lived here recently. It will not take long, I think, before he begins to profit from it—he is a quick learner.”

He nodded farewell to the speechless woman, and left the tiny cottage. Tam stood nearby, holding Muir’s bridle and chattering at the big horse. Tam started violently when a dark-clad arm reached past, and took the reins from his fingers; the other then caught him by the collar when his own jolt and subsequent tangled feet would have delivered him to the muddy ground.

“You will come to my home tomorrow, yes? There is much we must discuss.” He set the gaping boy right upon his feet—and quickly, Tam shut his mouth.

“Ah—aye! Yes, sir, Ah’ll be there. Does tha’ mean me mum’s alright?”

“She is doing well, and will continue to do well if she doesn’t overwork herself. Tomorrow, then, Tam.” And he mounted the courser, and turned towards home again. He didn’t need to look back to know the boy was still staring after him.

The ride was quiet, as expected. He had no need to ride through the small town that was roughly at the center of this community of subsistence farmers he’d settled not far from, so he avoided it.

He was lonely, he realized, acknowledging the frozen-over moor within, but he had no desire to take himself among people. There had been a time when he would have relished this aloneness, been perfectly content not to see another human being for days, weeks on end, and then only sparingly. That hadn’t changed, except for one thing—he wanted her back. Other people, he cared little for—Rapunzel, he would have tried to give the world.

_Silly, silly. Silly mageling._ He winced, and shook off the stray thought.

Instead, he’d hidden her away from it, and the tighter he’d clung the worse he’d made it for himself. So now, she wouldn’t come back, and he had no right to go to her, and interrupt her new life.

And it wasn’t a damn bit different from what he’d been telling himself for months now, he thought savagely, abruptly furious with himself. He should be free of the clinging guilt by now, should have shaken it off by now—he could do naught to change the events, so he must move on, accept this as his lot in life and leave the bloody past _behind_ , where it belonged, before he truly did go mad.

* * *

“Ah’ll send Damh—‘e’s the stag tha’ ‘elped ye find this place—wit’ ye as far as the edge o’ the Wood. From there, ye go straight north, past Dealt Dèan Sgreumhán, ‘til ye hit the mountains. Then a bit west, until ye find Staireán Sruth. T’aint a large town, more o’ a wee tradin’ post, really, but ‘e’s a place no’ tae far from there—ana o’ the locals could prob’ly tell ye where ‘tis.” One long finger outlined her route, running lightly over the yellowing parchment as he spoke.

She nodded, studying the map he’d dug up—it was an ancient thing, the parchment thin and yellowing, the black ink fading and spidery, but it had on it landmarks she could recognize reasonably well from her trip into the Wood. There was the wall, long and strange and tumbling down even on paper. Here was Roarke’s home, over there, a dot that stood for Seòbhrach Rubha, and one for Beinn Dùthaich, and even a notation of Teine Òir’s mountain.

“And if I happen to miss them?”

“Ye won’t, Ah think—t’is hard enough tae keep a master mage’s power un’er wraps. ‘e’s nae ana reason tae ‘ide ‘t’all a’ the moment, an’ Ah think ye’d notice ‘t whell ‘nough, if’n ye were in the roight general area. Ye lived wit’ ‘im fer ten years, ye’ll ken ‘is power when ye feel’t again.”

She hoped so. By the gods, she hoped so. Because she was growing more and more nervous as time passed—she wasn’t sure her nerves could take it if she got lost. The urgency—strange, uncertain urgency—was getting worse with every passing day.

“Yer pack’s full, ye’ve enough rations tae git ye there. Yer pony’s rested an’ tacked. Ye ‘ave only tae say g’bye, an’ go.” He smiled at her, the same faintly annoying smirk-smile his student occasionally let touch the corners of his sober mouth. His eyes were wary, or…no, they were waiting. Waiting to smile. “An’ answer a question o’ mine.”

“Alright.”

“Di’ ‘e eva laugh, when ye were wi’ ‘im?”

She blinked at him—that had not been a question she was expecting. What she had been expecting, she didn’t know, but that had not been it. “Yes, of course. Not often, but he laughed sometimes. Why?”

“Nae reason.” His eyes smiled now as well, though. “Ye’ll go wi’ mah blessing, Rapunzel.”

“Thank you.” Why did she feel, so suddenly, like weeping? Everything felt so hopeless all of a sudden—she should be heartened, she’d just gained another firm toehold in finding Dórainn again. Instead, dreary weariness swept over her like a wave as the full realization of the task before her sank painfully onto her chest. Dórainn might, warily, put to the side the circumstances of their separation, but he wouldn’t ever forget them. Their relationship, easy and caring as it had been, would never be quite the same.

Two callused, gentle hands took her shoulders, bringing her gaze back up. Roarke’s black-fire eyes were still smiling, still kind. “If ye care enough, an’ ‘e cares enough, t’will work oot. Ye’ll make’t work.”

“Yes.”

“Then no more o’ this mopin’. Off wit’ ye, lass. Ye’ll come tae no harm on the way.”


	22. Chapter 22

The journey back was no more eventful than the journey to Roarke’s had been—perhaps, she thought, following Damh, even less so. No wolves had bothered them, no demons—even the insects seemed more respectfully distant. It was shorter, too, or seemed to be—only five days to the edge of the forest instead of seven.

But now she had no guide—Damh had slipped back into the forest with only a strange tilt of his head in farewell—and she now had no way of checking herself against getting lost. She still had half of the money from the second necklace, but it wouldn’t go much farther than a night or two’s stay in an inn. Fortunately, the food Roarke had given her seemed as though it would last the entirety of the duration.

North and slightly west, Roarke had said, of where to go when the Stag had left her. She could, at least, identify the directions. She tapped her heels to the pony’s side, and they headed north and slightly east, the pony’s pace at a gentle plod, her thoughts on all Roarke had imparted.

* * *

A knock came at the door bright and early the next morning, the sun showing a bit less than half of its face over the horizon, and the fog still wispy among the trees. He was expecting it, for all he was still sipping his morning tea and breakfasting on a biscuit with a bit of yellow cheese while leaning, as was his habit, against the mantle. There was no longer a reason to sit, and he had no inclination for pointless sedentary.

“Come in, Tam,” he called, barely lifting his voice. The big door opened, almost hesitantly, revealing the auburn-haired lad. Pale as milk, the boy was, Dórainn noted, scared stiff.

The sorcerer nodded to the table, indicating Tam should seat himself. “Have you eaten anything this morning?”

“Ah—aye, sir,” the boy stuttered, dropping his green gaze.

“You don’t lie well, do you?” Dórainn asked mildly. Tam’s head jerked up again. “I’ve biscuits and cheese, if you don’t mind a cold breakfast. Or there are eggs and ham should you want something larger.”

Dórainn watched as the boy’s cheeks flamed red with embarrassment, then went darker as his stomach betrayed him with a loud rumble of hunger. He straightened from the mantle, and slid a small platter with another biscuit and the cheese over the table toward the lad. “Help yourself,” he commanded gently, and went to unhook the large iron skillet from a hook on the wall. “The eggs and ham will be ready in a moment.”

There was a strange sense of…rightness?… about standing here, cooking breakfast for a child. It had been years since he’d last _needed_ to, for Rapunzel, prior to her departure, had learned to cook as she’d to do all else, quickly and thoroughly. When he had cooked, it hadn’t been for her need. It was nice, being needed for something so basic and necessary.

The thought brought another pang of loneliness with it, one he didn’t allow to linger. Instead, he concentrated on dealing with eggs and meat, on flipping them at appropriate times, at sliding them neatly onto another plate and sliding that before the child that sat hungrily at his table.

* * *

When Tam sat back replete, his cheeks still a bit red with embarrassment, Dórainn spoke again. “I have decided what I want from you.”

The aura of easy contentment fled from the boy, the satisfied gleam gone from his eyes, and the flush receding into pale expectancy.

“It will be difficult, complicated, and occasionally painful. You’ll be working with me for several hours each day. I’m not a particularly kind instructor, and I am demanding. I’ll expect you to do what I tell you when I tell you to do it, and I’ll tolerate only the best you can give me.”

Tam gulped quietly. The sorcerer’s face remained completely impassive.

“There will be rewards, tho—”

“Rewards, sir?” Tam piped up hesitantly. “But, Ah’ve got me reward—ye ‘elped me mum. She’s all well naow.”

“Rewards of a less tangible kind, yes. We had a business arrangement, you and I. I’ve upheld my end, and have decided on the payment I want. What I choose to have you do or receive within that payment is my privilege,” the sorcerer said, straightening. Tam bolted to his feet as well. “We’ll leave these dishes here for the moment. Come with me.”

Tam followed him out of the cottage, into the garden.

“Those,” Dórainn said, nodding to the _falláinn_ plants growing in a neat patch in his strange garden. Tam looked at it, and then up at the sorcerer.

“Aye, sir?”

“What can you tell me about the plant?”

A tiny frown tugged the boy’s fine brows together over his eyes. “Sir? They, ah, well, they’re gud fer healin’, ye told me. An’ they didna ‘ave much o’ a smell. Kinda smoky, almost, an’ bitter. An’ ye boil water an’ steep it, like tea, almost. Aye? An’—an’ it doesna taste tae gud, me mum said. So ye use, ah, _sahba_ tae wash the taste oout. Sir, are ye—are ye teachin’ me mage-craft?”

“No, I’m not teaching you mage-craft. A person cannot learn magic, particularly—they have it, at one level or another, or they do not. Someone without magic cannot do more than go through the motions. I will teach you leech-craft, though, and the lore that goes with it.”

“Why not? The magic, Ah mean.”

“It is…similar to having green eyes, for example. You have them, I do not. You do not have enough magic—at the moment—to learn much beyond a few warding spells and possibly a charm or two.”

“’At the moment’?” Tam said, confusion in his eyes. “Wha’ does tha’ mean?”

“Occasionally, mages can come into power when they reach adolescence or later. That means that the power that should have emerged after infancy remains hidden until puberty, and then begins coming out in surges until the mage can be trained in proper control.”

Tam blinked up at him. “Wot’s puber’y?”

“It’s…” Damn, he’d walked straight into that question. “It’s when a boy or girl is old enough to physically produce children.”

“Will Ah get ‘t?”

“Yes.”

“Does ‘t ‘urt?” Tam asked curiously, head tilted to the side.

“Ah…no, it shouldn’t. You should ask your mother more about it.” _Not me. Don’t ask me about it._ He’d had to live through the horribly, mutually embarrassing talk with Rapunzel, when her monthly courses had brought her, at thirteen, running out of her room at nearly midnight, terrified by the blood staining her nightgown and sheets. “Anyway, I don’t think you’ll need to worry about being a late-born mage.”

“Oh.” The boy seemed almost disappointed. “Were ye one?”

“I wasn’t, no. What can you tell me about the _sabha_?”

Tam proved to be the quick learner the sorcerer had predicted, and had quickly memorized the various uses of several plants. Dórainn set him to mixing sachets of musky smelling herbs that would keep livestock calm in stressful situations and healthy. The boy didn’t know it yet, but he would be going to the market the next morning, to sell the sachets. They were oft-needed goods, and well-made ones could fetch good prices, even and especially in the tiny farm-towns that littered the mountains.

He sent the boy off for home mid-afternoon—plenty of time to get safely home before nightfall and to get all his chores at home done—and settled to do the more serious mage-craft he’d been putting off.

Warding charms for individuals was not the easiest of magic, and good ones were more difficult still. There were so many variables that had to be taken into account: bad luck, a concerted effort to harm, illness, clumsiness, general foolishness of the wearer. He had the base, a delicate chain of silver with a carved pendent on it that was apparently all the rage in Rìoghainn’s court. It didn’t matter much what the design was of—the piece was silver, and easy to work with for it. Layer by careful layer, the magic would grasp it and cling like roots.

Dórainn did not work before crowds, so he had never picked up the flamboyant gestures that some used. He did not produce sparks or make the candles and fire dim, or cast shadows on the walls and ceiling. Anyone watching him would have thought he was merely thinking quite deeply about something, or someone, staring at the necklace as he was. Someone inside the cottage, though, who wasn’t completely oblivious to the suddenly altered currents of the air, or the shifting of things that weren’t quite seeable, that didn’t quite make a high, clear singing sound, that didn’t smell quite of pine and old books, would have realized the source of the disturbance was, in fact, the serious-looking man sitting at his kitchen table, staring intently at the chain he held in on long-fingered hand.

While no one was watching—there were some who could feel it. Not far away, a farmer shuddered as, not a chill, per say, but a tingle ran down his spine and back up. Another man, this one the barkeeper, jerked, and nearly dropped the mug of ale he’d just drawn off for an elderly customer who habitually made his way down to the tavern around this time. A woman washing clothes in the clean-running stream shrieked as what felt like a cold hand clamped round the back of her neck, and whirled around wild-eyed.

And a fourth person, this one farther away, mounted on a little mare and considering a fork in the road with grave concentration, looked up sharply, knowing well the feeling that trembled warmly over her skin.

_He was here_ —somewhere near here. And Roarke had been right—she _had_ known him when she’d gotten close. Now she recognized the shivery contentment that settled itself lightly over her, like the very frailest gauze, still floating down onto her skin. She turned the pony to the left, took the smaller track deeper into the woods. In days, maybe as few as two, she would see him. Excitement fluttered tightly in her stomach, and was then leaden with something disturbingly like dread.

There was nothing to fear here, she admonished herself. This was Dórainn. He always would be Dórainn. The Demon Mage, she had decided, somewhere between the Tower and Roarke’s and here, was the exception, not the rule. It made sense, didn’t it, that she’d never seen him as that dark, chilling gentleman except when he’d been hurt most grievously? The rest of the time, he was not only a gentleman, but a gentle man as well. And shouldn’t she know, after spending all that time among the men of the court, without seeing much more than a wisp of gentleness? Everything would work out.


	23. Chapter 23

There, he thought, and sat back. It was done, or nearly. He would go back to it tomorrow when Tam was at market, and shore up any holes, reconnect any broken links. But the vast majority of the spell was done, layer twisting in on layer, magic hugging the silver like a lover. It was dark now, the day dying, and only a few coal-bright wisps of burgundy red still stained the rapidly blackening sky. The cottage was dark as well, with no fire lit in the hearth, and growing colder with the approach of night. He rose, mildly weary, and went to put Muir in his stable, to feed and groom and actively not think. The cool breeze meandered past—it was nearing summer, but here, so far to the North, spring and summer was more of a brief warming time, a thaw, when farmers could rush and plant and harvest just enough to eat, and perhaps a tiny surplus to sell or trade to those who could afford to pay for it, and so the winds were still cool, even now—brushing gently at his clothes, easing away fatigue and the thoughts that threatened to drift lazily through his mind.

Muir whickered to him, as the mage leaned against the fence, and brushed his nose over his master’s dark robes, searching for any treats. Finding none, the horse contented himself with lipping at the dark hair that was escaping the leather thong the mage had bound the majority back with.

“Hey,” he muttered in vague protest, pushing the horse’s head away from his and curling his fingers around Muir’s halter. The big black had rolled, he saw, covering himself in mud that had then dried fast to his slim flanks. No matter, Dórainn decided. Muir deserved a good grooming anyway, not the one of the swift, almost careless rubdowns he’d been receiving of late.

“And you do love being groomed, don’t you?” the mage murmured, once they were in the stall and he was smoothing away the drying mud with a stiff hogs-hair brush. Muir’s ears, just beginning to droop to the sides with pleasure, flicked back agreeingly to listen as the mage spoke quietly for his comfort. Neither was bothered by the weak pulses of magic that batted against the protections Dórainn had set up decades ago, and reinforced only a few weeks before.

* * *

“I have found something,” Cheann Sgaoilte announced grandly, his black silk robes rustling. He was an impressive-looking man of about forty—his body was still lithe, a gift from his father who’d been lean and hard until the day the miserable bastard had died, his hair still the brilliant _airgead_ gold color, only lightly laced with icy silver, and his face the type that only refined with age, even under years of debauchery and excess’s harsh treatment.

Those in the chamber held their breath as the mage—a journeyman, really, not much more than a common hedgewitch, though he’d sooner die than admit it—stared hard at something none of them could see in the still basin of water.

“What do you see?” the King demanded. _Such an impatient man_ , Sgaoilte thought, irritated with having his air of mystery shredded. He saw very little, really, flashes of insight, brief pictures of places he didn’t recognize. All of it shrouded with the distinct mark of the Demon Mage’s protection, that sparking veil of invisible, multihued light. Whoever the girl was, she was well protected. He, for all his bragging, wouldn’t have been able to lay a hand on the girl if he’d tried, there were so many protective spells woven around her. None of the notorious womanizers of the court had been either, he knew, nor those whose…stability…could be questioned. She had floated through their midst like a brilliant wraith—beautiful and ethereal, and completely untouchable. It was the force of those protections now that made her difficult to see, even in the snatches he was used to claiming for his own.

“I see a path, marked with the tracks of a horse. It leads from the Stag’s Wood, toward these mountains.”

“And?”

_Pushy old bastard_ , he thought. “There is a place, in the mountains east of here, that is guarded by wards and barriers. They carry _his_ stench.” He hoped that that was where the girl was headed—everyone knew she had been the Mage’s lover, ah, _prisoner_ before Prince Caoin had brought her here. Just as everyone knew the King despised the Demon Mage, and would gladly do anything to rid the world of him. Frankly, there were those of the court—Sgaoilte among them—who felt that Rìoghainn would do better to leave the mage alone, before he finally grew irritated enough to make an effort to remove the irritating King.

The King made a noise like a growl. “I knew it,” he rumbled, and swept out of the tower chambers Sgaoilte had taken for his own. The mage could hear him shouting for his general and eldest son as he strode down the spiral stairs—an impressive feat, as those stairs were dizzyingly narrow and twisted tightly on their way down and around.

_Well_ , he thought with a little smirk, sitting back and watching the advisers troop out with heavy-lidded cobalt blue eyes, as he intended to sit back and watch the ensuing bedlam. _It will be interesting, won’t it?_   

* * *

 

_Hot, with arid sand underfoot and no wind to speak of. Here, Muir had been won, and kept, in a battle with a local mage—a sheik, he called himself, a mage-king. Instead of taking the mage-king’s kingdoms,_ _Dórainn had taken only his choice of a horse—something that was almost akin to taking the man’s finest houses, they loved their horses so here. But the one he chose wasn’t revered in the normal way—they assured him the huge black was of wonderful stock on his dam’s side, but questionable paternity had ruined him for the sheik’s purposes._

_But now another body lay crumpled at his feet. No scar marked man or land. A horse thief, common enough in these lands, who’d been unlucky enough to startle him when he was running too hot to control the flash of power completely. So he lay dead, instead of merely dazed, while the locals, with their dark eyes and intricate body coverings only looked on in quiet complacency._  

* * *

 

_He was apprenticed!_ Tam couldn’t believe his own luck—or the generosity of the mage. Apprenticed—it meant that he was one step closer to being able to make money for Mum and Tia and Banneldaine. One step closer to being able to step into the shoes Da had told him about, before he’d died. That much closer to being a man.

He strode through the woods, along the path towards the sorcerer’s home. It was barely dawn, but the earliness of the hour didn’t bother him—he’d regularly gotten up early with Da to help in the fields. The fields that had been sold, and the ones that were going to be, to the neighboring farmers.

Tam didn’t mind it so much, that the land was going. It made him feel a little guilty, like he was turning his back on Da, but he didn’t…didn’t really like farming. It was okay, of course, and it was really interesting how the plants went into the ground as little seeds and came out as great leafy things—but he didn’t want to do that all day, every day. He wanted to fix things, wanted to make people feel better, but not the way the doctor had, with a useless, good-smelling plant. He wanted…

He wanted to help people, the way the mage had helped his mother. To really help them, and take away illness and pain.

Tam knew the moment he stepped onto the mage’s land, even without magic in him—if he really didn’t, as the mage assured him he didn’t. He almost wished he did, as strange and nearly frightening as the prospect was, just so that he could learn everything the mage could teach him—he could feel the tingly warmth of it, like stepping inside on a cold evening, after a day spent working hard. And then he could see Muir, already out in his paddock for the day, nibbling delicately at the tender grass. The black raised his head briefly at the boy’s approach, whickered softly in greeting, and returned to his search for the choicest of bites.

Tam liked horses fine, but none of them had ever been the beautiful black—Muir was everything the farm-horses of the area were not. Sleek and graceful and strong, shining black with gentle dark-brown eyes, and as evenly tempered as one could ever want. And fast, so fast it made his heart leap to his throat just thinking about the speed, and the feel of air and coarse-silk mane whipping his face. Somehow, it was fitting that he was the mage’s, when the mage was similarly fantastic.

The cottage was an oddity—it seemed bizarre, visually, as though it were ever so slightly off-balance, though Tam knew from being inside that the stone that made it was thick and strong. It was right, though, perfectly right, he felt, for the mage. Odd and oak-solid and wondrously filled with magic.

“Come in, Tam.” It must be that magic, he decided, that let the mage know that he stood outside his door, moments from knocking. He let himself in, and neatly closed the door behind him, before turning to face his mentor and hero. The mage was where he’d been the day before, leaning easily against the mantle, a cup of tea cradled in one long hand, silver-grey eyes as watchful and direct as a hawk’s. The other hand stroked the cat, who was, for once, not perching among the heights of the cottage, but at hip level, on a chair. He was dressed the same—trousers and a tunic belted close under a plain black robe that was belted far more loosely—but they weren’t the same set of clothes he’d been wearing yesterday, Tam was sure of it, and that bespoke of wealth, to be able to wear different clothes every day without washing them every other day. The mage also wasn’t wearing the two blades Tam had seen on him only once—when he’d looked up to see the mage the very first time, riding in on Muir, with saddle bags buckled tightly to the saddle, some six weeks ago.

“Have you eaten?”

The question made him wince—he had, but it had been a green apple, small and hard, and unfilling. It was only luck that he hadn’t succumbed to a bellyache. He did his very best not to eat at home—if he didn’t, his mother would give the extra to his siblings, or eat it herself.

The mage didn’t say anything, but nodded to the table, where there were two bowls of porridge—one empty, the other still steaming. Tam hesitated.

“It is as easy for me to cook for two as for one,” the mage said quietly, picking up the empty bowl and cleaning it with a hand motion and a tiny tendril of power before setting it back on its shelf. “I can imagine that you would rather your portion go to the children at home, and that’s well done of you. But I would rather you didn’t faint at my feet from hunger.” An enigmatic little smirk twitched one corner of the mage’s mouth up. “And it will taste better warm.”

Tam blushed without really knowing why he colored, and sat dutifully at the table. A spoon was produced, and the porridge eaten without further ado.

“You mixed enough of the sachets yesterday to go to market today,” the mage stated, still leaning against the stone fireplace.

“Sir?” Tam looked up from his breakfast.

“Bartering is a good skill to cultivate, so you’ll be going to market, not I. One sachet is worth at least three pounds of grain, or fresh haunch of meat. Or the equivalent of whatever it is that’s offered. Do you understand?”

“Aye, sir.” The boy jumped up from his seat.

Dórainn looked on, amused. “You can finish your breakfast first. The market won’t be getting up and walking away.”

“Sir.” Another flush of color flooded the auburn-haired lad’s gamin face, and he sank back into his chair and resumed eating, as though he expected the bowl to be taken from him at any moment.

“Nor will the bowl. You needn’t hurt yourself.” Moving without hurry, the mage finished his tea and set aside his mug, before packing the sachets into a large basket.

“If they’re gone by mid-afternoon, come back here. Any later than that, take the profits home with you. Have your mother divide the goods in half, and keep the one half for yourselves.”

“Bu’, sir—”

“Tam.” The single word, with its deceptively mild inflection, brought the boy to a halt. The sorcerer’s eyes were half-lidded, the thick lashes that surrounded them shielding their depths from discovery. “Accept what I give you.”  

Tam’s eyes widened and his head shook back and forth very quickly. “Oh, nay, sir, Ah couldna—T’wouldna be proper!” Masters always took the lion’s share of profits—everyone knew that!

“Be easy, Tam, I won’t ask you to take _all_ of the fruits of your labor,” the mage promised drolly, a sardonic gleam to his hidden eyes. The child, however, seemed impervious to his sarcasm, excitement building like a flood within him.

“So Ah’ll—Ah’ll go naow? Aye? Sir?”

“Yes, it seems you will.” Dórainn blinked at the bundle of jittering eagerness that was, suddenly, his pupil. “Go on, then. There’s bread and cheese in there for you…to eat at midday.” But he was speaking to his door now, Tam already well away.

He would never understand children, he decided, picking up the bowl now empty of porridge and cleaning it, or how they could be entranced by what seemed to him to be a rather loathsome chore. They were simply incomprehensible.

But his plan was working admirably, and his mind was not wandering too often where it ought not, so he was rather pleased with life when he began selecting particular herbs and the other precise tools of his trade that would be necessary to completing the protective charm to his own stringent standards.

Tam, meanwhile, hurried along the path, the excitement and pride so strong within him that he felt he might burst. Not only apprenticed—trusted, too! His was the best master a lad’d ever had, he was sure of it.

* * *

The sun was directly overhead, glinting weakly through clouds that threatened the area with imminent downpour. That hadn’t stopped the farmers from converging upon the village for market day—sheep and cattle surged in roughly built pens guarded by bearded men and bare-faced lads, while women of various ages displayed vegetables and cloth wares, and children ran unheeding through the streets, fetching errands, selling trinkets, or playing with friendly contemporaries. It seemed that Gypsies had made the village their resting place, for however long they chose, for they too milled, buying and selling goods.

The mare picked her plodding way through the market, used to such conditions, even if her mistress was not. Rapunzel looked around with unconcealed interest. The people looked back, intrigued by this stranger in their midst, here, where few outsiders came.

She dismounted with a grace that was both natural and born of seemingly endless repetition, and went to one of the women selling cloth wares at a table, the pony’s reins in hand. A friendly-faced matron with a generous figure, the seamstress smiled at her. “Wot brings ye so far Northways, m’Lady? T’isna of’en we see ought o’ yer rank ‘round ‘ere.”

“I’m looking for someone.”

The woman looked interested. “Aye? Well, Ah’ll likely ken ‘im, if’n ye give me a name, an’ if Ah dinna, Ah’m sure Ah kin direct ye tae someone who does. We dinna ‘ave many tae know ‘ere.”

The girl smiled, and didn’t realize that the smile was tinged with relief. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you. It’s a man, tall, with dark hair and grey eyes. He generally goes by Alasdair—”

“Aye, aye, Ah ken the mage.” There was a slight frown between the woman’s eyebrows, and her smile had faded some. “Lass, nae tae pry nor git in yer way, aye, but are ye sure ye want tae find ‘im? Fer a mage, Ah suppose ‘e runs rather tame, considerin’, bu’—well, ‘e _is_ a mage, ye ken? Why, Ah told Effie jist the other day tha’ ‘er Tam should prob’ly keep ‘is distance, tae.”

“Where can I find this Effie? Or Tam?”

The seamstress sighed. “Tam’s right daown th’ street fraem ‘ere, a wee lad wit’ tawny hair an’ green eyes. ‘e kin tell ye where the mage is—he’s ’prenticed tae ‘im, or sommat like tha’.”

“Thank you for your help,” Rapunzel said with a nod of farewell.

“Ah ‘ope ye ken wot t’is yer doin’, Lady,” the woman said, a worried expression on her comfortable face.

_So do I_ , Rapunzel thought as she walked away, leading the mare. _So do I_.

She found him easily enough, standing in the street hawking sachets she knew almost as well as she knew her paints. He was a young lad, redheaded and very thin, though exuberance shined from his big green eyes. Judging from the ragged clothes he wore, he’d fallen on some hard times.

She wondered briefly what the boy had done to draw the mage’s attention. Dórainn wasn’t the type to reach out first, and he was quite conscious of his awkward position in society—not an evil, perhaps, but a necessary unpleasantness, nonetheless, as a wielder of power always was, which could, in a blink of an eye, _become_ an evil and be disposed of thusly.

Tam blinked at her once when she approached him to inquire, and then immediately jumped into reasons why she should buy one of the sachets.

“You misunderstand, I’m afraid. I’m not interested in buying a sachet.”

“Yer no’? Oh, well, then, wot t’is’t tha’ ye’ll be needin’?” He asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

“I need to speak to your master.”

“The mage? ‘e’s no’ ‘ere today, bu’ a’ ‘ome. D’ye ken where ‘e lives?”

“No.”

“Oh. D’ye want me tae show ye, then? Ah’ve aboout finished ‘ere.” He gestured with the full basket. There were perhaps two sachets left, squeezed in between the various goods that had been bartered for them.

“That would be wonderful,” she said. “How far is it?”

“Oh, no’ tae far. Aboout two, three miles, a’ most.” He eyed the pony whose reins she held. Not as fine as Muir, he decided, looking over her conformation with the practiced eye of a boy raised side-by-side with colts. A delicate, fine-boned lady for her breed, not quite so roughhewn and stocky as the norm. “If’n ye want tae mount up, Ah’ll ‘old ‘er fer ye.”

“Would you mind if I preferred to walk with you?” She smiled self-deprecatingly at his questioning eyes. “I’ve been riding for a while. Walking would do us both good.”

“If’n ‘t suits ye, Lady,” he replied with a shrug, seemingly baffled by her. “T’is this way.”

They walked in awkward silence for a long moment, then, “’ow’dye ken the mage? Ah dinna ken ‘im tha’ well, but ye must be friends, aye? Fer ye t’ come. Ah mean, ‘e doesna talk much, an’ some people dinna seem tae loike ‘im so greatly, bu’ ‘e’s really verra kind, ye ken?” Wide green eyes looked up, excitement reentering them, making them the color of a spring leaf, new and freshly unfurled.

“He is, isn’t he? Do you like him, then?” she asked. She had seen reactions to him that ranged from all-consuming hatred to wary admiration, but no one she’d talked to, save Roarke and Teine Òir, seemed to know him in more than passing, or really like him. That this child thought so highly of him only firmed her strange brand of love for him.

“Oh, aye. ‘e scared me a bit, a’ first, bu’ ‘e ‘elped me mum, an’ then ‘prenticed me. But…”

“Yes?”

“Ah think ‘e’s kind o’ lonely. Ah mean, ‘e lives alone, ‘cept fer Muir, an’ ‘e doesna go tae town. An’ sometimes ‘e looks real sad. Ye ken?” He had been considering the ground for a bit, but now he turned his eyes up again, and they were wise as only a child’s could be.

“Yes,” she replied slowly. “Yes, I know what you mean.” Tam described the expression she had seen in the mage’s eyes on more than one occasion, dark and sad and perhaps even slightly wary. She hadn’t seen it so often in her youth, but as she grew older, and especially after that mortifying night when she had wept on his lap, it had come out more and more often. Then, she had dismissed it, without too much worry, as a mood, or a fleeting worry. Now, she wondered if guilt hadn’t preyed on his mind relentlessly, he who valued trusting and being trusted so highly, knowing he lived a lie and had forced her to as well.


	24. Chapter 24

_Packing was hell. Placing things that had made up the fabric of daily life in wooden crates was painful. Knowing that he couldn’t bear to take the majority of her things hurt more. The cottage wouldn’t hold everything comfortably, and looking at her books, her clothes, her things beside his when she herself was not available would be enough to ensure he could never return to the cottage. So he left them, charmed against damage, and against theft. Only she, if she ever chose to, would be able to remove her things from the tower, just as she, only she, would be able to enter the tower room._

_But he’d taken her art, those few, beautiful ways he could peer into her heart and mind and feel close to her warmth again. Those he’d taken, and kept with him, in a leather ledger spelled against aging, in the saddlebag by his right thigh, along with the length of braid he’d severed. And he always would keep those two things, even if they had to stay out of sight. For it was all he could bear to have of her, them and the myriad memories of her._  

* * *

 

A band of horses, fifteen strong, swept over the land. They moved fast, and sunlight glinted off the shining steel their riders bore. Mothers pulled their children away from the road as they passed, and men looked up in the field, but they didn’t pause. Their leader wore expensively simple clothing, and his sword was decorated with gold and diamonds, but was no less sharp for it. At night, they slept lightly, and rose early, to push their mounts hard again the next day. Their colors were simple, red and gold, and the insignia was that of a golden gryffin rampant, with a red rose clutched in its beak on a white field, but for all the simplicity, it was well known in the area.

Seòbhrach Rubha.

* * *

The cottage wasn’t what she had been expecting, but it was more perfect for him than anything she could have imagined. Stone walls, with generous glass-paned windows cut into them, rose at slightly strange angles, and were topped by a sloping, shingled roof, which in turn was broken by a chimney of the same silvery stone the walls were made of, currently releasing smoke that was ever so faintly purple. A few brave runners of ivy crawled up the sides, and huge, ancient trees surrounded it. A length of fence ran away from the cottage, off into the woods for a fair distance. Elsewhere, undergrowth had choked the rest of the forest from the path—here, that undergrowth had been trimmed back, or perhaps simply didn’t grow, with no overt signs of pruning. A garden, large and obviously well stocked, grew healthy and green, peaking ever so slightly from behind the cottage. Nearby, a stream burbled swiftly on its way down the mountain.

In the pasture, Muir raised his head, acknowledging the visitors. He ambled over, seeing the new pony, to say hello.

“D’ye want me tae put ‘er in the field wit’ ‘im?” Tam asked politely.

Did she? Yes, and no. She wanted desperately to finally set eyes on the man she’d traveled these weeks for, but she abruptly didn’t want to be without the shield Tam and the mare provided. What would they say to one another? What _could_ they say to one another?

“Yes, thank you,” she decided abruptly. She had always faced him before. She would face him now.

Tam took the pony’s reins, and led her away. Rapunzel turned to the door, Tam’s basket in hand. Through the window, she could see him, tall and straight, dressed, as always, in his dark robes. He worked with manifest magic today, with the herbs and tools a master mage was privy to. Taking a deep breath, and preparing herself, though for what she knew not, she raised a hand and knocked.

She could see him startle from where she stood, and knew she’d broken, at least partially, his concentration. He looked up, shook himself slightly, and moved out of her range of vision to open the door.

And then he was before her, eyes distracted and unseeing for a moment, and she feasted upon the sight of him. As slim as ever, with shoulders still broad and strong enough to bear up under adversity. His hair, still mostly as black as raven’s wings, was perhaps threaded more with silver than the last time she’d seen him, but it was still as long it had been so many months ago, longer, even, and knotted back with leather at the moment, his absentminded salute to work. His face, never as pretty as some of the denizens of the court, was still harsh and lean and fiercely beautiful. The lines there were deeper, but detracted from his attractiveness not at all, instead lending humanness to his face. His eyes, always her favorite of his features, were still the same steel-silver.

Recognition flashed through them, and for one frozen second, a whole range of emotions, some of which she couldn’t even identify followed recognition. His face was gently leeched of color, and he seemed abruptly lost for words.

“Ra—Rapunzel.”

Emotion faded from his eyes then, making them as hard as ice, and he grew subtly stiffer, his long fingers, where they held the door, growing tense and white against the wood.

* * *

When had she grown so very lovely? He wondered. She had always been beautiful, always light-filled and gorgeous, but in an innocent’s way, with unconcealed excitement and emotions always easily visible on her face, in her eyes. Now she was restrained, pale and lovely, and he couldn’t read what lay in her crystalline eyes. Was it nerves? Was it dislike?

Why had she come? That was the most important question, wasn’t it? Until he knew that, after all, he could really expect nothing. He couldn’t know if she had married, couldn’t know when she meant to depart again. Couldn’t know even how she’d come to find him, for, not realizing she might ever want to, he had left her no clues.

With a conscious effort, he pried his fingers from the wood of the door, stepped stiffly back, and widened the entrance. He didn’t speak—what could he say? What, in the face of what lay between them, the connection they shared, could he possibly say that would come close to adequate? ‘I’m sorry’? ‘I regret it’?

Dórainn didn’t regret it, and he wasn’t sorry. He couldn’t regret the ten years he’d had of her. So he said nothing as she entered and placed the basket on the table, only to retreat again to stand awkwardly by the fireplace, but looked his fill, to add to his precious collection of memories.  

The stiff, painful air of their reunion was shattered by the arrival of Tam, who bounded in, all big green eyes light with exuberance, and long gangly body in motion.

“Near to all o’ ‘em sold, sir, the sachets, Ah mean, an’ most o’ ‘em fer higher than ye said,” the lad reported, jiggling where he stood.

“That’s…good, Tam. Well done.” The mage moved woodenly to the table, where the basket stood, and whisked off the neat cloth that protected the basket’s contents. He looked over it quickly, and selected a loaf of bread and a large bottle, and set them on the table, away from the magic paraphernalia.

“This is all I want, Tam. The rest is yours.” He looked up, and handed the basket back to the boy, and seemed to realize he had been socially remiss. “Rapunzel, this is Tàmhas MacNiall. He is…working off a debt for me, as an apprentice healer. Tam, this is Rapunzel.” The lack of an explanation for her clanged audibly around the room, ringing in the adults’ ears.

Tam, though, seemed not to notice. “Oh, aye, sir, she tol’ me tha’. Are ye sure ye dinna want more? Ah mean,” he said, looking down at all of the goods still in the basket, an anxious expression in his eyes. “T’is such a lot, sir.”

“Your mother will find something to do with the extra, I’m sure.”

“Well, sir, if’n yer sure. Is there anathing else today ye want me tae do?”

“No, Tam, you may go home now.” Hard grey eyes moved from the child to the woman who also stood in the room, and back, then to the door, only to return once again, in one slow, continuous sweep of hawk-keen sight. Suddenly restless fingers folded themselves into dark robes by his sides, hiding their agitated movement. Save those clues, the mage could have been made of stone, so still and rigidly was he standing.

“Well, alright, then,” Tam said, edging toward the door, sensing at last the tension. “Ah’ll, um, Ah’ll come back tomorrow, aye?”

“That will be fine, Tam.”

“G’bye, sir. Ma’am,” he added, with a duck of his head, before he slipped out the door.

For a long moment, silence reigned, and they stood like statutes, simply watching one another with wary eyes.

“How—Why did you come?” It broke the silence like the discordant clash of metal on metal, sounding too much like an accusation where none had been meant. _Oh, well done, Dórainn,_ he growled angrily to himself _. Let’s make sure we keep her at arms distance._ But while he grimaced internally, outwardly he showed no sign.

She, too, had refused to flinch on the outside. Instead, when she spoke, her voice was steady, and her eyes unreadable. “To ask questions, and gain answers.”

_Questions_. It was, he mused, always questions with her. “What questions have you that only I can answer?”

“My parents. You know where they are.”

_Oh, yes_ , he thought again, while razor-sharp ice shards struck in his chest. _She always did ask the most painful questions._

“Yes, I know where they are.” Abruptly, he turned his back, walked by to the table, and began moving things carefully back to their shelves. “Sit, if you want.”

She sat, knowing him well enough to know he’d answer when he was ready, and watched him store the tools of his trade. Her art didn’t hang on the walls here, she noted—what walls were not hidden behind the shelves of paraphernalia and books. On top of one, Kier sprawled, watching her with great yellow eyes. Nothing hung on the blank stretches of wall between, though. There was nothing to soften the room’s harsh edges, and only a layer of plaster smoothed the rough stone. The entire room was similarly austere. The only charm lay in the familiarity of the books, of the objects that sat quietly on their shelves, each a memory.

The kettle went on the fire, the teapot fetched and filled with tea leaves—blended for calmness and clear-thinking. He didn’t speak until the water had boiled, and the tea was steeping, and even then, he busied himself with something that let him keep his back turned.

“Your parents live in Beinn Dùthaich now—they have since before King Murchadh died. They are in good health. Your father’s investments did well, and they grew wealthy. Your younger sister is sixteen now, seventeen in just a few months, married to one of the lords there, and is pregnant her first child—six months along, or so. Your brothers are sixteen, ten months younger than your sister, and fourteen, and an apprentice goldsmith and the Master of Falcon’s youngest trainee, respectively. From all appearances, they enjoy their work. Your grandfather died several years ago, quietly, and in his sleep.” _Ban-bhuidseach._ It was an ugly word, that.

Finally, he was forced to face her, his hands run out of tasks, so he sat, and poured the tea. Like countless other cups, he slid it before her, along with the honey and the milk pitcher, having added a miserly dollop of the sweetener to his own cup.

“You’ve kept a close watch on them,” she commented, eyes downcast as she stirred wild honey into her tea, missing the slight knitting of dark eyebrows over pale grey eyes.

“It was important to,” was his reply, murmured mostly in the direction of the table.

“How…” she paused, bringing his eyes up again as she deliberated over wording. “How was it that I came to stay with you?”

“You would be better off asking your Prince that.” There was ice in his voice to match that in his eyes now.

“I’d rather hear it from you,” she responded with maddening calm.

He leaned back in his chair, and let his eyelids droop to half-closed, effectively hiding anything that might shine through. His long fingers cradled his mug with deceptive ease—they looked loose, but for the whiteness around the joints and tips of his fingers. It struck her again, more completely, just how very much he looked like Roarke, and how much Roarke looked like him. Inscrutable to the last.

“Very well, then, if you insist.

“Before you were born, I found a man in my garden, just outside. In his hands were plants, ripped up by the roots, and powerful enough a quarter of the amount he took would have been sufficient for any task. I called out, and he ran. The man was your father.”

“He stole from you,” she said tonelessly.

The sorcerer raised an eyebrow, and nodded slightly. “I let him go—it was more effort in chasing him down than a handful of herbs was worth—as powerful as they are, this area appeals to their growth, and there is plenty. But he came back, two days later, and tried again. This time I caught him, and he babbled out his story. Your mother, it seemed, had severe cravings for socrach root and had sent him to get some. As it happened, mine was the only garden with socrach in it. I asked him what the plant was worth to him, that he would steal it. He offered me his unborn child.”

“Me.”

“Yes,” he replied, watching her from beneath his eyelashes. “You.”

“And I was named Rapunzel. For the theft. Rapine.” Was it strange that she felt numb? Or was this a normal reaction to learning one had been sold away for so little?

“Yes.” The word was slow, not quite hesitant.

Her smile was brittle when she looked up again. “Clever. You did indeed name me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I named you.”

She sat shocked, dazed by the turmoil of her soul. “I—I need—to walk,” She said at last, lurching to her feet.

Concerned, Dórainn rose as well. “Rapunzel?”

“No!” He stopped dead where he stood, as though struck, watching her. “No—I need to be alone,” she clarified, and bolted for the door.

A second later, it slammed shut, and the sorcerer slowly finished rising. He stood a moment, staring at the door after her, before he went to a shelf that clung to the wall by its brackets, loaded with dusty bottles and containers that didn’t look particularly benign. He selected one, and held it up to the light let in by the windows. Deeming it tolerable, the mage returned to the table with it. Popping the large cork, he poured a judicious amount of the dark liquid into his mug. After considering the bottle, and then his mug again, he shrugged to himself and added another tot of the stuff.

Fire burned down his throat when he sipped, scorched its way to his stomach. The alcohol was none of the gentile stuff most of his social class would drink, with its softer warmth—this was true whiskey, as Roarke would call it, strong enough to burn away any troubles for a few hours.

It was, he decided as he took another sip, a shame that he would have to nearly empty the bottle to achieve the desired effect—blessed thoughtlessness. He didn’t drink often, and very, very few of those times were wasted in a conscious effort to escape, but magic had a curiously dampening effect on alcohol. Today, though, it seemed fitting, and doubtlessly it would be easier, to wander down the vicious, thorn-edged path of memory for Rapunzel while safely wrapped in the protective gauze of spirits. Later, when it wore off, perhaps he could deal with the fresh pain she was bringing with her.

One thing he did know, undeniably. She wouldn’t leave yet. He had not finished the story, and she knew it. And after she had regrouped, she would come back.


	25. Chapter 25

_Silence echoed queerly about the forest, as it always seemed to. He paid it no mind—he was too used to the various regions of the woods, with their changeable levels of magic, twisting, varying paths. Muir, beneath him, was equally unconcerned, having made this journey several times. Neither horse nor man started when the White Stag joined them—seemingly materializing out of the bushes to pace beside them as Dórainn navigated landmarks and magic patterns with the skill of a consummate traveler. The quiet seemed almost bleak, some more-than sound moving restlessly, waiting for something that would never come. He knew the feeling of waiting for nothing, knew the restless hopelessness of it. Wasn’t it that that had driven him to travel these last three and a half months, searching for some ease that simply did not exist—save for in one highly forbidden place?_

* * *

 

Why did it make it worse, knowing that in some strange way, he had been justified in his actions? She didn’t know why, but it did. To be regulated the status of object, a prize to be claimed. Her father—Da—had stolen from him. And not just once. Twice, though he hadn’t been so lucky the second time. Certainly, Da should have been made to pay him. But had she really meant so little to her father that he would sell her away in return for _plants_ , before she had even left the womb?

The tumble of thoughts and emotions roiled within her, until she couldn’t tell if she hated or loved her parents, who had allowed such a thing, or the mage—why had he taken her? Had he been so desperate (desperate for what?) that he would take a child in payment?—nor what she could ever say again to any of them.

She went to the horses’ pasture, looked blindly at the two that stood companionably in the clearing, grazing head to hindquarters as horses did. The pony raised her head briefly at her approach, then dropped it again when she saw no sign that her mistress was ready to go. Muir, distracted by his new companion’s movement, looked up as well, and whickered quietly. He seemed to decide the girl needed his company more than his fellow equine, for he left off grazing and ambled over. The fence was low enough that, had he truly wanted to, the big black could be over it and away, low enough that his big head swung over it easily to nudge her shoulder with his velvety muzzle.

“Hello,” she murmured to the horse, reaching up to stroke his soft cheek. He huffed softly in response.

There was something eminently soothing about talking to a horse. They offered no advice, said no ‘I told you sos’. There were only highly intelligent, liquid brown eyes, and a large warm body to lean against. There was a sense of endless listening, of interest in what one said. So she talked, and rubbed his face until the turmoil within was less likely to explode out of her.

When at last she felt she could face the mage again, she patted the horse in farewell and turned back to the cottage. Rapunzel was angry now. No towering rage, but a steady burn of anger, summoned to consume the pain. So far, it seemed to be working.

He was sitting where she’d left him, in a chair by the table, considering the opposite wall with intense concentration. He didn’t look up when she entered, but sipped again from his mug. There was a bottle on the table, sitting innocently by the teapot. She blinked at it, startled, noting that the liquid inside was already more than half-gone.

“Whiskey?” She glanced at the window, gauging hours of sunlight.

“Mmn,” he agreed grimly, and nodded to it in invitation. She declined and sat in the other available chair. “We had a contract, your father and I,” he began again. His grey eyes weren’t just lidded now, but completely closed. It was nearly amazing that his voice wasn’t slurring yet, judging by the amount of liquor he seemed to have consumed in so short a time. He opened them again before continuing to speak.

“They were to have you until your first birthday—to wean you, and insure you didn’t become ill. There were other considerations, as well, but those were the important ones. After that, I was to come, and they would give you over to me until you had reached your majority or left of your own volition.” The strange little half-smirk tugged at his lips, but there was no humor in it, just a great deal of weariness. “They agreed, I agreed, and the deal was bound, properly.”

He paused, sipped the concoction that was more whiskey than tea from his mug. It wasn’t helping, he found. The barrier was too flimsy to hold against the pain. Instead of pretending it was doing any more than disgusting her, he set it down on the table, pushed it away.

But, and he thought this strange, guilt had yet to rip into him. Regrets, pain, yearning, yes, but no guilt. Maybe it was gone forever, paid for in full during ten years of deceit and following pain. Rapunzel, meanwhile, watched him, her blue eyes revealing next to nothing. She was angry with him, he knew that much, and knew he deserved the anger, and anything else she threw at him as well.

“The year passed. I went to your parents’ home, only to find it empty.” At this, his eyes finally glanced up to her face, guardedly. He saw where her mouth, beautiful and bow-shaped, had tightened at the corners, where her eyes had widened slightly in disbelief.

_Not twice_ , she thought with growing pain, _three times_. Three times her parents had stolen from him.

“Unfortunately for them, we had made a contract. It needed to be appeased—the right words said, the binding removed. Until that happened, I was bound to follow, to search, and to try to claim you.

“Seven years it went on—that is why your family never stayed long in any one place, Rapunzel. They were running from me, and trying to fight the bind.” He heaved what seemed a silent sigh, and dropped his gaze again to study the expanse of table between them. “When you were seven, I overtook your family. Your mother escaped the house with you, rushed into the forest, while your father and grandfather stayed to guard your brother and sister. I followed your mother, and you, into the woods.” 

“You sent demons after me?” there was an inflection to her voice, a slight ache, as she remembered the wolf who’d frightened her so very badly.

A muscle in his cheek twitched slightly, and he closed his eyes tightly enough for his dark eyebrows to draw together in a paroxysm of pain. “Yes. You could say that.”

She narrowed her eyes on him, and when she spoke again her voice was cool. “I ‘could say that’? That is an evasion if ever I’ve heard one. Why did you use demons?”

“Besides their being a good deal more trustworthy than most humans?” the mage inquired in return, a touch of acerbity in his slow, even tone. A slight widening of her eyes showed his words had struck home.

Irritation, or whatever it was that flashed warningly in his eyes, brought them up to pin her to her chair. “Because they can travel a great deal of distance far more quickly than I, even on Muir, can, and unlike a summoned imp, they can survive without my having to expend my own power to keep them alive. Because they frighten people into doing foolish things, like leaving their daughters in a thicket of briars in a forest infested with predators.” He watched her, eyes as sharp and unreadable as hers. “Why enter a debate of ethics with a mage, Rapunzel? You’ll always win on merit, true, but the expedient will always win out with one of us.”

“Oh?” she said, in a tone that matched his for acerbity. “Building a tower of rare white stone for a child that was no more than a prize was expedient?”

He blinked slowly at her, not even having the grace to acknowledge the thought. “Did you want the full of the tale, or did you come to point out the many and varied mistakes I’ve made throughout my career?”

“You said you would answer my questions.”

“I didn’t,” he retorted. “I answered them, yes, but I didn’t say I would.” He took a deep breath, released it slowly, leashing tightly the tendril of temper that had escaped his hold. A long moment of silence hung between them. “No.”

“No?” There was genuine puzzlement now, in her voice, in her eyes. “No, what?”

“No, it wasn’t particularly expedient to build the tower. But it was worth it.” Oh yes, it had been worth it. Even now, looking back, it was worth it. It was a haven, a standard of respectability to live up to, their private microcosm of a family. A retreat from the world, a place where the outside couldn’t intrude unless he let it, and wasn’t needed.

That seemed to give her pause, and brought a new light of vulnerability to her eyes. He wasn’t sure if he should worry about that vulnerability or not—was it a softening of mistrust towards him? Or remembered pain? Dórainn couldn’t be sure.      

She shook herself visibly, eyes growing unreadable again, and returned to the earlier subject. “The wolf demon was yours, then. I was never in any danger, was I?”

“The wolf demon was mine. No, you were never in danger,” he agreed starkly.

“Why did you decide to keep me, after you—”

“Kidnapped you?” he provided. She nodded, discomforted. “I offered your parents an opportunity to retrieve you.” The words were slow, almost apologetic.

Rapunzel’s eyes grew wide, and pained, her face paled. “They never came,” she whispered.

“No,” Dórainn said flatly. “They never did. I had hoped, for your sake, that they would.”

Silence ruled in the cottage for a long, seemingly endless period as she absorbed the blow, and he ached to pull her close against him. But she did, and he didn’t, and they remained in the frozen tableau that was his kitchen, sitting room, and library all in one. Kier, finally irritated by the humans’ back and forth exchange, jumped down from the shelf with a solid thud, making her flinch from the sound, and stalked to a window that was open a crack. With another leap that defied his girth, he was up to the casement and pushing his way out within a moment, off to stalk some poor unwary creature.

“And for you?” She inquired bravely. “What did you hope they would do?”

He watched her, wondering if she could see straight through him to the core of fear and uncertainty that was within. If she could, could she see the love that lay there as well, and who the love was for, if only she would take it? “I had hoped they would never come.”

Was he telling the truth? She considered the possibility. It was difficult to see behind the flatness of his eyes, and nearly impossible to discern telling notes from his voice when he didn’t want to show anything. But then, why would he lie about such things? Could he…

Could he have deeper feelings, too? Or was all of this tension really only that, the awkwardness of a unique, highly uncomfortable situation? Or, or—or was it something completely different, independent of their history together?

“But it matters little now, I suppose,” he added quietly. He studied her for a moment as they floundered in unease and embarrassment, and finally offered, “You look well, Rapunzel.” _Beautiful_ , insisted a voice in his mind that sounded strangely like his mage master—charming, capable of being complimentary without looking a fool—but without the distinct feel of Roarke’s mindspeech. _Soft, lovely, desirable._

Taken aback by the compliment, she blushed. “Th-thank you? You, ah, you look well, too.”

The bizarre little smile that could express everything from cold malice to amusement quirked the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were veiled, and gave no clue what he thought of the returned praise. “Thank you, Rapunzel.”

Silence once again prevailed, a strange mockery of the silent ease with one another they had once possessed. Dark had fallen outside—they had talked for hours, and said nearly nothing, he thought sadly.

“There is a bed here you may use,” he said quietly to the table. “There is no inn in town.”

“Thank you,” she replied, equally subdued. “But I can find somewhere else to sleep, or sleep outside. I don’t mean to be a burden.”

Another frisson of pain flickered through his heart, harsher than the bittersweet twinge love usually tugged with. “It is no burden. Please, take the bed.”

There was an expression of doubt on her face. “Where will you sleep?”

“My chair,” he gestured to the single stuffed armchair that stood stalwartly by the hearth, “will serve my purposes adequately. It has before, and I have no doubt it will do so again.”

The uncertainty still hadn’t faded from Rapunzel’s face entirely. “If you’re sure…?”

Dórainn nodded, a dip of his head that was unconsciously regal. “I am sure.” _I would not have you sleep outside more nights than you must, love, nor suffer any harm I could spare you_ , he thought, and nearly said aloud, before he caught the words and reeled them back. Knowing that she had slept beneath the stars, had slept in a room surrounded by rooms filled with members of Rìoghainn’s Court, amongst the myriad of predators—demon, animal, or human—was enough to clench his stomach into knots. Those knots only grew tighter, for an entirely different reason, knowing she would again sleep beneath his roof.

She rose, graceful as a willow. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”


	26. Chapter 26

Fatigue dragged willfully at his shoulders, pounded a relentless beat at his temples, but despite himself, sleep would not come tonight, not even the brief hours he usually managed to force himself to. The horses were in and cared for, Kier had returned and slipped his way into the bedroom to be at last reunited with his mistress, his work couldn’t be finished until tomorrow at the earliest—he had done everything he could, and still, his mind would not find rest.

Instead it treaded the tired trails it had been slogging for the last several hours, revisiting again and again each part of their discussion, weighing words, measuring inflections to try and find the meanings that might, or might not, be hidden there.

With a sigh, he rose from the armchair again to pace softly around his house. His footsteps were silent in deference to the girl that slept in his bed, just a door away.

The thought sent another twinge of discomforting heat winging down his body to stir his manhood. With lips whitening against a heartfelt groan, he wheeled away, and stalked towards the fireplace instead.

Why hadn’t she stayed the child she had been? The child, he could now see, she had been up until the very day she had left his tower. If she had remained that child, perhaps he could have stayed strong against her. But now, at only seventeen, she was a woman, mature in her own right. He could see it in her eyes—no child had the same self-awareness as a woman, the kind of self-awareness that showed she knew precisely what she could do of her own power, and warned a man to beware.

 _Daughter!_ He shouted at himself. _At the most, she is daughter!_ But his body was proof of the lie. She wasn’t his daughter. She was a woman, _the_ woman, he had discovered in those long six months without her, he loved to the exclusion of all others.

Why wasn’t she married? He demanded suddenly, silently, bitterly, of whichever deity might be listening in. Why had she not married and stayed elsewhere, present to him only in thought and dream, where, eventually, she might become only a memory? Instead she was here, lovely and still as forbidden as ever, tormenting him with questions that called up the very worst of their situation.

A noise distracted him from his thoughts, a mumble from the other room that resounded through the silent cottage like a scream. He frowned—never, at the tower, had she had nightmares, or talked in her sleep. A brief war was waged within him—should he go to her? Should he stay? The first excuse (and it was an excuse, he knew, no more) won out, and he walked across the room again, and eased the door open.

Kier’s eyes shone gold-green at him in the meager light, from where the cat lounged at the end of the bed. And there was the cat’s mistress, in his bed, sleeping, as she always had, curled up on her right side in her long sleeping gown, her long golden hair braided loosely and coiled on the pillow. He had always loved her hair, he thought, padding into the room silently. Liquid light, tamed to a braid as thick around as his wrist.

He gently brushed her wispy bangs out of her face, letting the milky light of a half-full moon that poured in the single bedroom window wash delicately over it, rendering it flawless. He could feel the warmth of her skin, so near his fingers it made him ache.

But he brushed away the hair, and left it at that. Satisfied that she slept peacefully, he turned his back, and closed the door gently behind him.

* * *

_She was twelve, once again, living in the tower. It was nighttime, and it was winter. She should be asleep—the stillness of the air told her that the sorcerer had, at last, gone to bed. But something had woken her—what, she wasn’t sure._

_The sound came again, the low groan of a creature in pain. It was faint—very possibly; it came all the way from the forest. Knowing it, knowing Dórainn sometimes went to the aid of the beasts and demons of the Dark Forest, she struggled from under the bedclothes, and left her room, the stone floor icy against her bare feet._

_When the third sound reached her ears, she stopped. It wasn’t coming from the Forest. It was coming from upstairs—from Dórainn’s room._

_Rapunzel hesitated. Dórainn had very few rules that could not be bent with a request and a logical explanation. Only three were truly ironclad; she could not play with his tools unless he expressly said she might and was there to ‘supervise’. The same went for the herbs hanging on the third rafter and sitting on the shelf nearest his desk. The third rule stated that she was not allowed in his room unless it was an emergency._

Well, it is an emergency _, she decided, and dashed up the narrowly winding set of stairs that led to his chamber. The heavy wooden door gave under the pressure of her body, and swung ponderously inward._

_The stone room was small—not even as large as her own, much less the kitchen-study-library downstairs. The single window facing north let generous amounts of the full moon’s cool light, bathing part of the room in silvery light. There was a table somewhere in the gloom of the shadows, but she had eyes only for the bed and its occupant._

_He lay sprawled on his front, the blankets reaching only his lower back, leaving the rest of his back and shoulders bare to the cold. Rapunzel blinked—she had never seen the mage less than fully clothed—and was intrigued by the difference it seemed to make. There were his master mage’s marks, tattooed blackly onto his back, curling slightly around his shoulders and trailing very lightly onto his upper arms. The rest of the interlinking tattoos were cut off from her sight by the blankets, but she knew that they would end at the very base of his spine—he had told her about them, and shown her a diagram in one of the many books. The pentagram, the Eye, the metaphysical and alchemical elements, the triquenta, the Stag and the Wolf, the Tree of Life, and countless other symbols of magic all linked appropriately for balance and control._

_Curious, she moved closer—and froze in her tracks when he shifted, mumbling inaudibly. Now she noticed that his skin had a light patina of sweat, that his visible hand had clenched painfully on the pillow, that his face was hard and tight with emotions she had never seen on it before._

_But it wasn’t until she had completed her careful, silent walk to his bedside that she saw the scars beneath the mage marks. They were old—she could see that much. But so large, and so many!_

_“No, no…”_

_She jolted at the moaned words, blue eyes snapping from his back to his face again, only to relax marginally when he showed no signs of waking. Then, very gently, she laid a hand on his shoulder, found it icy. The scars there were raised ridges against her hand, slightly rough and rather unpleasant. Immediately, he shuddered, almost flinched from the contact. Before she could withdraw it, though, he gave another shuddering sigh, and seemed to relax._

_A bit frightened, and sad, she had drawn his covers higher, and padded back to her own bed._  

* * *

She woke in the night, following the odd dream of another night, years before. Kier, who seemed to have taken up station at the foot of the bed, as he always had, looked up, golden eyes gleaming slightly in the almost nonexistent light. He chirruped inquiringly when she shoved back the sheets—they smelled cleanly of him—and padded across the sanded plank floor to the door. It didn’t creak as she opened it—his doors never seemed to creak—but swung silently inward, to reveal the rest of the darkened cottage.

No candles were lit, and the fire was only glowing coals, but they emitted enough luminescence for light to dance redly along black stands of hair, and to give a glow to the black-clad form of the sorcerer, stretched easily in the chair he had indicated he’d sleep in earlier that evening. It was nearing dawn, she noted, looking out into the blackness of the forest—the moon had set, or nearly.

He probably hadn’t gotten much more than half an hour’s sleep by now, if he was still sleeping as erratically as he had when she was a child. But his chest rose and fell peacefully, and he showed no signs of being trapped in a nightmare. That was good. Judging from the fatigue that etched itself willfully in the lines of his face, he was getting no more rest than ever.

She loved him, she acknowledged grimly. It was no great epiphany, not when the realization had been building up, it seemed, for years. Not as a friend, though he was a friend. Not as a father, though he had raised her. As a lover—as what she had heard described of lovers, having never taken one, despite several opportunities at court. With warmth coiling in her belly, a strange tightness in her chest, and dampness between her legs.

As a life-partner; helpmeet, lover, friend. And therein lay the problem. Not only would society look in askance at such a strange relationship as theirs, but he may not even feel the same.

It was selfish, being here. She was hurting him—she could see that much at least, knowing him. But she had needed to see him, to get the answers she had come for, to deal with the pain he’d dealt with them in turn. He had answered some of them, the ones about her birth family, about how she had come to live with him in the first places. The answers were more difficult to overcome than she had expected, summoning very old sensations of abandonment and fear…and anger, disillusionment, outright pain.

Strangely, there was an odd sense of freedom as well, a lack of restrictions. Truly, she was her own woman now. Her father had given up any right to her ten years ago, and the contract had stated she was free when she chose to leave of her own volition—

A yawn cut off her musings, made her entire travel-worn body ache in a way she’d become accustomed to. Why was she awake, when there was a soft bed available to her for as long as she might want it, her body inquired silently. There was time in the morning for such foolishness, it muttered, if she wanted to continue this bizarre line of self-questioning. 


	27. Chapter 27

Morning dawned clearly, glinting off the modest armor the riders wore as they mounted their horses. They were delving deeper into the mountains now, and would be nearly at their destination by nightfall. When they camped again for the night, they would do the rituals Cheann Sgaoilte had advised, and take the precautions any force would take when going up against a powerful magic-crafter. Their mission was firm in their minds—to retrieve the Prince’s fiancé from the Demon Mage, and, if possible, rid the North of the menace once and for all. 

* * *

 From when she woke, just after dawn, until Tam hurried home after noon, there was a careful game at work in the sorcerer’s cottage, in which the adults pretended that nothing was the matter, and there was nothing even mildly uncomfortable between them. Dórainn gave Tam his lessons—three more herbs to commit to memory, and showed him some basic applications of the ones he’d already learned. Rapunzel, meanwhile, settled down outside to begin sketching the cottage.

Yes, she decided, glancing up at the house again before looking down at the swiftly rendered sketch she would soon begin to build up with value and texture, it was as oddly constructed on paper as it was to the eye. The angles were still as strange as they had been yesterday, the lines of the place almost too clean—except where they weren’t. Magic was the reason for its perceived oddness, of course, the magic he had put into with the building, by living and practicing his craft within it for any length of time.

She liked it here. In the cottage, in the village. Here, in this section of the mountains. If it—and whatever ‘it’ was, she didn’t know—didn’t work out between her sorcerer and her, she thought perhaps she’d stay here. Not in the cottage, naturally, but in the area. She could sell her paintings in the nearest city—Beinn Dùthaich was only a few days ride southwest of here, and Seòbhrach Rubha only a week or so away, if her calculations and Roarke’s map were correct. If she asked around, there was likely a house around here that had been left empty, or could be purchased. It would be awkward, yes, and possibly painful for both Dórainn and herself, but she was nothing if not stubborn—this journey had proven that. She would persevere in her quest to straighten things out between them.

The midday meal was a curiously pleasant affair—the tacitly agreed upon game of ‘nothing’s wrong’ played for Tam’s benefit provoked easy conversation and general camaraderie over the simple fare Dórainn provided.

When the boy left, however, the friendly atmosphere began to evaporate into wary expectation. 

* * *

 What was she waiting for? Had they not been over everything they could? She had the story of her life, she had the location of her parents. She had the various truths he had held back from her. What more could she want of him, that he could give?

 “ _Ye’ll ‘ave tae force ‘t oot o’ ‘im, woteva ‘is feelin’s are—‘e won’t give ‘em up easy. If’n ye kin make ‘im loose ‘is temper, they’ll come oot, but ‘t’ll take a bit o’ doin’._ ”

Roarke had warned her, and it seemed he was correct. Dórainn was as close-mouthed as ever. And to be quite honest, she wasn’t particularly sure she wanted to make the sorcerer lose his temper again—it had been a rather frightening experience, watching helplessly as the Demon Mage put ice into Dórainn’s eyes and voice.

“When people say you’re the Demon Mage,” she began carefully, “what precisely are they referring to?”

They were sitting at the table again; the midday meal’s dishes washed and put away, mugs of hot tea steaming before them. Across the broad oak table, the sorcerer’s head jerked up, his grey eyes tearing away from their careful contemplation of the wood grain.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, as though sure she couldn’t be bringing up such a topic.

“I’ve never noticed that you, ah, work exclusively with demons, so I was wondering why people, mm, call you that.”

She glanced up, trying to gauge his reaction, and winced a little at the harshness of the lines in his face, the severity of the set of his mouth. The frozen quality of his eyes.

“It’s a name I received young,” he replied slowly, with awful pauses between the words. He shifted, leaning back in his chair and studying the mug of tea in his hands. “Compounded by the fact I eventually settled in the DarkForest.” He searched her face—for what, she wasn’t sure he even knew.

“My mother…I believe that the magic I have came from her family. But she was not a strong woman. Giving birth to me caused her to die,” he said it with carefully neutral inflection, weighting every word before it left his mouth. “I was…left in the care of my father.”

Her stomach muscles clenched.

“I believe the death of my mother likely drove him a bit mad. He…hmm.” The sorcerer paused, looked up at her. “I assume, since you’re here, you’ve spoken with Roarke?”

She nodded.

“Then I will assume he told you that my father—ah, we’ll say, he took his aggressions out on me. He did, didn’t he?”

“Ye-es. Roarke told me.” How could Dórainn be so—so _off-hand_ , about the abuses he’d taken from the man he’d called Father?

“Ah. But I doubt Roarke told you how he came to find me, did he?”

 “H-he said that twenty people died,” she said, suddenly afraid that she knew precisely what the red haired mage had meant—she had assumed, somehow, that he, _Roarke_ , had killed them. Somehow, it had seemed so much more likely than Dórainn. But now…

“No, Rapunzel,” he corrected, almost kindly. His eyes were unbearably weary. “Twenty people were killed, by a blast of uncontrolled energy. I was the source.”

Silence reigned for another several moments as she absorbed that. He sat quietly, unconsciously holding his breath, waiting for her response while the seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness.

“Roarke said you were only seven years old,” Rapunzel finally said, her lips slightly pursed.

“Yes, I was…approximately seven.” He couldn’t read her face, he thought. Couldn’t fathom what she might be thinking, feeling. Knowing that whatever she was thinking couldn’t be good—how could it? He was a killer, and now she couldn’t ignore it—put ice in his heart.

“Then you couldn’t be expected to have any control over your powers,” she declared.

“No, I couldn’t,” he replied matter-of-factly, startling her. “I had no training. In the eyes of the Mage Council, I am guiltless, for that. Am I guilty of their deaths? Yes, I am. Can I bring them back now? No.

“Would I wish them anywhere but the hell I imagine they now reside in? That’s the question you should ask me.”

She stared at him, wary. He looked disturbingly like Kier, right before the cat sank his claws into unguarded flesh and kicked away at it, for a reason indiscernible to humans. Wild, and yet perfectly, utterly still, watching with eyes like daggers.

“Do you wish them anywhere but hell, then?” she inquired. He couldn’t—surely, he didn’t hold on to that guilt? Hating them that had tortured him? She had seen the scars, herself. Anyone who did that to a child deserved the lowest ring of hell.

“No.” There was the darkness, what he needed to fear her learning, and rejecting. Not that he had killed them—many men had killed in self defense—but that he now regretted it very little. The others…those he regretted. They hadn’t needed to die as they had. But not the first twenty.

She sat quiet, a deep sense of relief filling her.

“When Roarke found me, _bròineán_ ,” he continued very levelly, watching her very closely, “there were twenty people dead, and the remains of an exceedingly large bonfire. My father believed I was the spawn of a demon, which had killed my mother and would very soon do the same to every single person in that village. He and nineteen other people decided to rid themselves of the risk of that before it happened.” There was a need in him, strange and perverse that wanted desperately to push her away. To reveal every horrid act he’d ever committed, simply to ensure that if she was going to run from him, it would be now, before hope could creep into him, and be killed most cruelly later.

Rapunzel choked back something suspiciously like a whimper. Hearing it from Roarke had been bad enough—hearing it from him was heart-breaking.

“Magic’s first priority, when it is placed in a human body, is survival. There is a balance between Earth magic and mage-magic—you know that. Mages are needed, and magic runs in families. By the time I was seven, I was uncommonly good at controlling the wild magic within me, but even if I had had five years more training by then, those people still would have died.

“That doesn’t excuse anything else that has happened during my life—there have been others who have died, with causes and reasons as varied as the moon phases. There have been people whose lives have been damaged, or changed irreparably by my influence. It’s likely,” he continued quietly, “that everything you’ve ever heard about me is true, or very close to true.”

For one horrible moment, he though she actually would bolt from him, and realized that hope had crept in regardless, and was now being put in a strangle hold.

“O-oh?” she heard the waver in her own voice and forced lightness into her tone instead. She couldn’t respond to everything she’d learned, not now. She needed time to assimilate. “Then you were born under a dark alignment of stars, keep the souls of your victims in carved wooden boxes, wager with the deep demons, and are the consort of the Unseelie Queen herself?”

It was his turn to blink in something approaching confusion. Then he smiled, first the corners of his mouth tugging upwards, then his eyes narrowing and crinkling at their corners until he grinned at her, truly and really grinned at her, something like relief in his silver eyes.

 “The Unseelie Queen has plenty of consorts, without searching out one particularly uninteresting mage. I enjoy having a soul, so I do not wager with the Greater demons, or even the demons of this plane. I merely employ them on occasion. Trapping the souls of victims isn’t nearly worth the effort it takes to cram them into boxes in the first place. And all of those things you know, _bagaileáis_.” Impertinent girl.

“Yes,” she agreed, smiling back.

The humor drained from his face slowly, but surely. “You didn’t come here to ask questions you already know the answer to, or even to learn of the past.”

She blinked. “Yes, I—”

“No,” he repeated, with a slow shake of his head. “I know you too well to be fooled for long, Rapunzel. There’s another reason you’re here.” If the past had been the only reason she was here, she would have left at dawn—it was, he realized, her nature to be practical, and do what she would think was polite—leave him to his empty life. If that had been it, he wouldn’t have had the chance to reveal all of his misdeeds. Hope flickered like a threatened candle, the noose around it slipping seductively tighter.

She dropped her eyes for a moment, drew in a long breath, and released it. He waited now, as she had last night.

“There were a few reasons I came. One was to ask about my family, to find out what had happened. Another was to learn of your past—it was important,” she insisted sternly, when he looked as though he would deny. The expression on his face, the frown of refusal, eased away to a mere tightening of his eyebrows, telling her he didn’t entirely believe her, but was more interested in learning of her third reason than in arguing.

“The third was to ask another question…the most important.”

He stilled, watching her closely. The late afternoon sun poured through the windows, the soft, reddening gold light easing some of the harsher angles of his face and lighted the dust motes floating on the currents of air.

“Whether or not you…”

“Whether or not I what, Rapunzel?” he inquired quietly, when she trailed off into silence. She remained quiet another moment, gathering her courage, and deciding which words she wished to use.

“Whether or not you cared.”

She wished the moment the words were uttered that she could snatch them back. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly with the blow, then turned immediately to dark ice, impenetrable and reflective, and his face went to stone.

“You can doubt it?” he asked, his deep voice subtly strained. “That I loved you as…as a daughter? As more than a daughter?”

Her blue eyes grew very wide, riveted to his.

“Oh, yes, Rapunzel,” he growled. Temper, dark and curiously detached from the rest of his face, leapt to his eyes, past the icy barricade. “I love you. Too much, perhaps, in ways I shouldn’t, certainly, but I love you. You’re no daughter to me—a woman, perhaps, but no daughter.”

Silence rang through the cottage, ringing loudly in their ears after that statement.

He stood abruptly, even the temper hidden away now from view. “Excuse me,” he rasped. “I need to see to the horses.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herein there is a scene depicting a consenting sexual relationship between a man and a woman. 
> 
> Please also excuse any and all formatting oddities; the program is fighting me.

It hurt, he found, as badly the second time as it had the first. Hope had quietly died, barely even a kick or two as the trapdoor beneath had dropped away. He strode from his own home in a haze of pain, seized the horses’ halters from the barn. Perhaps he hadn’t used his hands or power to push her away, but he had used words, and feelings—his own. And that made it worse, infinitely worse. Because this time, when she pulled away, it wouldn’t be from his temper, or because she was afraid of his powers, or the things in his past. It would be because he, as a man, and his perverted love for her, had driven her away.

The numbness was coming back, he noted, with a spectacular lack of emotion, sliding the mare’s halter over her ears. It tightened his chest and did little to ease the clenched feel of his abdomen, but at least it put a halt the tearing sensation that lingered high under his breastbone. Muir snorted at him, tossed his head a few times, then settled to the idea of being stabled—however briefly, for the mage to groom him and pick any stones out of his hooves—while it was still light out. It meant also, and most importantly, that he would be fed.

Dórainn was grateful for the numbness that was spreading thinly over him. It meant, maybe, that he would stay numb until she was gone again.

Muir shoved his nose against his master’s shoulder, and nickered quietly. The sorcerer lifted a hand, rubbed between the horse’s eyes until Muir shuddered with pleasure, and then led him towards the barn. The mare followed, ears now pricked at the possibility of food.

They were as good a shield as any, he decided, horses. And they had the added advantage of being large and warm and unwaveringly loyal, perfect to lean upon. 

* * *

 

_He loved her. He loved her as a woman, not merely as a daughter._ She sat where he had left her for several long moments, absorbing the information he had flung at her. It was a revelation, and a welcome one—he loved her, or thought he did. There was a chance, then, that they could be together. A good chance, she thought, springing up, as though to follow, and then paused.

She wouldn’t get ahead of herself, wouldn’t delude herself into believing that they would be married and live ‘happily ever after’. But if there was a chance…she wouldn’t let the term ‘mistress’ bother her. Not when it was the price of trying for more between them; nor any of the other, less kind terms for such a woman. Besides, she had little left to lose—she had left Seòbhrach Rubha, she had no pressing engagements anywhere else because she simply did not know anyone else, and if it did not work out, she would simply go South, or to Beinn Dùthaich, or elsewhere. She was, she knew, a good enough painter to be able to sell the paintings to survive, and if she could not, she knew enough of herbs and healing to be a midwife or a healer.

But if all went well, and the chance worked…

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she turned to the door he had so recently gone through, and followed.

She found him easily, with his back to the door, stroking a brush over Muir’s dark, silky-looking hide. The horse seemed in the throes of ecstasy, his ears flicked back to listen to his master’s steady, almost lilting voice. Dórainn spoke fluently the crooning of nonsense and compliments that was a language to hostlers and cavalryman across the world. But his voice was dull beneath the uniform cadence of horse whispering, and his movements, while as sure and economical as always, seemed as though they were very nearly too much effort.

Finally, his voice fell away from the soothing tone. “What do you want, Rapunzel?” he inquired tiredly, not bothering to turn around, or cease rubbing the summer mud from Muir’s back. He simply stood, tall and straight, brushing at the same spot on his horse’s back, waiting for her answer.

This was what the dragon had meant when he had made his comment about returning whether or not Dórainn wished her to. The meaning of the words struck her like a solid blow to the breastbone, with enough impact behind it to force her to catch her breath. He had loved her—loved her still—and she had hurt him intolerably. And then hurt him again, returning, and reopening all of the old wounds.

“You had no right,” she said, walking into dim, warm interior of the barn. His back stiffened faintly, his shoulder blades jerking slightly, and the brush on the courser’s back coming at last to a halt.

“You tell me you love me, and then you throw qualifiers at me. You say I’m not your daughter, Dórainn, but a woman,” she continued, moving closer still. “And then you say you love me in ways you shouldn’t.

“You say ‘I love you’,” she charged, when he turned to find her right behind him, too close to evade.

Too far to kiss.

“But you run before I can say it back.”

He watched her closely, silently, for a long time, peering into her eyes as though he would examine her soul. “And given the chance to say it,” he growled softly, after what seemed an eternity, “would you?”

He didn’t touch her. His hands, long, narrow, sorcerer’s hands, remained quiet at his side, one still holding a hog-bristle brush, though they ached to go to her waist and draw her against him. His face, lean and harsh, was tight, the flesh of it stretched taut over the rawboned frame of his bones. Eyes the color of a blade were locked on hers, searingly direct and intimately searching.

She smiled, an expression easily as fierce as his eyes. “I would. I love you.”

Some of the dark intensity leaked from his eyes, softening them, heating them, some of the tension in his body went with it.

“I—” his mouth twitched, belying frustration when the words he wanted wouldn’t come. “ _Mi bi gaol agad air a gus lei, Rapunzel_.” My heart is yours.

The brush thudded lightly to the straw-covered wooden floor. His hands came up, settled very lightly on her waist, as though afraid he would damage her, holding too tightly, or worse, that she might flinch away. “It always has been,”  

Warmth flooded in, easing the numerous little bruises doubt and pride had left inside her. “And mine, yours,” she replied softly, moving closer, and wrapped her arms around him so that her head rested comfortably against his shoulder. Dórainn smiled against her hair, pushing back the encroaching prickle of tears behind his eyes, and held her close, reveling in the feel of her against him.

She pulled away a second later, though, and he thought for one brief, insane moment that he’d done something wrong, that now was when he would wake from this strange dream, as he had woken from all the others, needing and denied. All doubts were dispelled, and hope sprung awake again, a phoenix, when, instead, she pressed her lips to his, and brought with her a shaft of pure, sensual heat, tempered with bittersweet love and strengthened again with too many other emotions to name.

* * *

 

Here was fire, she thought, dazed by it, then gave up thought to feel the heat of his mouth on hers, the silk of his hair tangling in her fingers, the strength and control of his fingers and palms stroking up her back, then down again, reassuringly firm. Here was pleasure, white-hot, tightening her belly to a writhing knot. The warmth of his body, seeping through his clothes and hers, to wash into her very bones—how had she never before noticed how very warm he was, how pervasive the warmth? The startling tilt of his head to deepen the kiss, the shockingly gratifying flick of his inquisitive tongue against the line of her lips, jolting her into opening so that he could slip, quite agilely, inside and continue to do wonderful things to her.

He broke the kiss, letting them both gasp in needed air, and was off, dropping feathery-soft kisses across her cheekbones, nose, eyelids, forehead, chin, like the late-spring rains, little more than mist. And then returned once again to her mouth, seducing.

“No,” he groaned quietly, and drew away as though it hurt him to do so, holding her at arms length.

“W-what? Why did you stop?” She didn’t want to drag her mind back to some semblance of sanity, or force it to function. She wanted him, now, as soon as possible, as she had never wanted anyone or thing before. Rapunzel felt, if he simply left her like this—a knot of scraped-raw nerve ends tightened to the point, nearly, of pain—she would die. And worse, if they stopped, and reality intruded, it would end. “Don’t stop,” she yelped, and rose on the tips of her toes to crush her mouth back to his.

“No, Rapunzel,” he promised roughly against her lips, before extricating himself again, “I won’t—can’t. But this will happen in a bed, not here.”

He bent, scooped up the dropped horse brush, and tossed it carelessly into the small room at the end of the stable where tack and grain and other such things were kept, uncaring of where it landed. Perhaps the magic he sent after it got it in its place, perhaps not. Then he swept her from the stall in a fluid movement, and efficiently closed and secured it behind them, leading them both, within a moment, to the back door of the cottage.

There was a moment of awkwardness when they reached the bedroom—an attack of shyness on her part, and some indefinable emotion flared in his eyes as well.

And then, just as quickly, the awkwardness was gone, broken by her tremulous smile, and they were back in one another’s arms.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, sliding his hands from where they had again rested hesitantly on her hips up to her ribcage. They nearly spanned her completely, his thumbs coming to rest just beneath her breasts, his fingers curving with her ribs nearly to her spine, not quite meeting in the middle of her back. “Gods, so beautiful.

“Sensitive,” he continued wonderingly, when she shuddered at the causal brush of his thumbs against the undersides of her breasts, even through the fabric of her dress.

She watched his face, saw sensual hunger there. The same was coiling ever tighter in her belly. It was that that made her shudder at his touch, yearn to be somehow closer. It was that that made the air heavy and sweet, and made the red-golden light that poured through the windows onto the bed seem almost liquid.

His fingers shifted, went to the lacings of her bodice. 

“You won’t need this,” he promised softly, deftly untying it, and unlacing it, without ever taking his eyes from hers. How many times had he done this in his dreams?

“Nor this, lovely,” he whispered when the bodice was off, and his nimble fingers had started on her chemise. Then, at last, her upper body was bare for his eyes. They feasted for one very long moment, the heat in them, the obvious appreciation, bringing a flush of embarrassment to her face, causing her eyes to flicker away.

He flicked a finger along her cheek, feeling the warmth there, and the heated steel of his eyes softened. “Beautiful lady, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. Rapunzel,” he rumbled tenderly, bringing her attention back to his face. “Look at me, _gaol_. Touch me as I’ve been touching you.”

She nodded wordlessly, and lifted trembling fingers to the fastenings of his robes. Within moments, his outer belt, of pouches and pockets dropped to the floor. Then the heavy black fabric, and his black-linen tunic. Save for leaning over to rid them both of their boots, Dórainn stood quietly, letting her do as she pleased, watching with silver-gone-molten eyes.

Rapunzel studied him, eyes trailing over him. His shoulders were broad, broader now, free from obscuring black cloth. There were intriguing hollows just beneath the sharp line of his collarbones. The chest that lay below looked hard—not as sculpted as some of the more grotesquely muscular guards at Seòbhrach Rubha, but certainly tastefully trim, with a fascinating series of slight ridges on his abdomen, like those on a washer-board, giving in to a stretch of smooth skin. A thin line of silky-looking hair ran down from his naval, parallel to his knife-blade hipbones, to disappear under the line of his trousers. Without thinking, she traced its downward path with a fingertip.

He twitched at her touch; one sharp inhalation of breath, to replace what shock had knocked out of him, then stilled again for her benefit.

But she had already snatched away her hand. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, Rapunzel, not in the least,” he replied tightly, his voice in accord with the blazing heat in his eyes, and the taut expression of need on his face His hands, motionless by his sides, had fisted. “I overestimated my own self-control. By all means, continue. Please.”

Warily, she took a step forward, and carefully flattened a hand against his chest. It was a very nice chest, she decided. Not particularly hairy, which she was grateful for—many men his age had a pelt, it seemed, of curling grey hair that oft escaped the collars of their tunics. She wasn’t often a prude, but such a covering seemed to her very untidy, and rather unhygienic—not at all attractive.

Her hand slid lightly down, brushing over a small, flat nipple, and over the slight ridges of his ribs, visible, but only just. Then it dropped away, and she started to do the same on the other side.

A scar gave her pause. She had seen it, a moment ago, when she had first set eyes on his body, but dismissed it as one of the many that covered his body, products of a life lived the hard way. But it wasn’t quite the same. This one was more the pink of still-healing flesh, though it had obviously healed cleanly and closed a while ago. Straight and about an inch and a half long, the width of a blade, just beneath the jut of his right collar bone, mercifully above his lung. It would have bled nicely, though, she thought. Certainly enough to scatter drops of blood around the tower.

“A reminder. To not be a fool, and turn my back on an enemy, not matter how innocent he appears,” he murmured, having guessed, in that eerie way of his, what she was thinking. “No more, Rapunzel, no less.”

He kissed her then, and backed her towards the rumpled bed, eased her down while never lifting his mouth. Together they tumbled down, sprawled like children.

The touching began again—eager pets here, long, sinuous strokes there. The testing of flesh with fingertips, lips, tongue, and teeth. Heat built higher and hotter, the ache in her belly grew more demanding.

She whimpered quietly, and clutched at his shoulders—the ache was nearly pain, and the heat and tension was becoming neigh unbearable. There had to be more, some release or explosion, or _something_.

“Patience,” he whispered in response, and cupped the origin of the heat, ignoring the cloth that blocked him from direct contact. Rapunzel twitched, shocked—she knew, in theory, at least, what the mating process involved, for Dórainn had been, while discreet, very thorough about her education—but this was very different from what she had expected.

He made a sound in the back of his throat that may have been a chuckle. “Lift your hips,” the sorcerer instructed gently, and slid with deft ease her skirt and under layers from her body.

He was burning alive. But this fire had no dark shades, no trice-damned allusions to vicious memories that made his soul cringe. This fire licked at his body with cheerful intensity that promised, finally, the fulfillment of too many needs to list. It was fueled by her, he thought. How could this love-making, and the little death that would follow be anything but lovely and right? He loved the feel of her skin beneath his hands, the unconscious prick of her nails on his shoulders, the sounds that trickled quietly from the long, white throat he was nibbling on.

He cupped her again, rewarded with another tiny gasp, the widening of her crystal-blue eyes as they locked on his. She was feverish there, and wet enough already to dampen his hand. His body tightened once more in eager anticipation, a warm shiver running down his spine. He ignored both reactions and focused all his concentration upon her.

She twisted slowly, wanting, abruptly, as much of his touch _down there_ as she could get. It felt so very good, both relief and torturous pleasure at the same time. He stroked, gently, with one elegant finger, the dewy folds he had found between her legs, then drew an intricate little pattern there that had her hips bucking towards his hand, and forced her to balance precariously on a knife-edge peak of tortuous pleasure, needing only one more push to go over the side.

Instead of giving her that push, he eased away, leaving her to balance unsteadily.

“Wait—”

As though he hadn’t heard her protest, or felt the tension in her soft body, he parted her, and slipped one lean finger inside, simultaneously moving his thumb lightly across a tiny point she hadn’t, ‘til that moment, known existed.

Pleasure roared through her as she tumbled over the side, clenching and unclenching every muscle in her body, drawing a muffled shriek and a thousand tiny convulsions where he was still delicately embedded.

He felt every contraction, the knowledge of her pleasure sending a hard jolt of need through his own body. Control fought against need, and, after a vicious struggle, won. For now.

Rapunzel lay still at last, eyes soft and body replete, watching him. Tiny spasms still went off, but they were gentler. He was a beautiful, generous man, with desire in his eyes and a will of iron keeping him from rushing. She was, she knew, exceedingly lucky that he would be her first.

And, Gods willing, her last.

“Come to me now,” she commanded softly, and sat up. A push against his shoulders forced him down, and she scrambled to sit astride his thighs—she had seen a girl do this once at court, when the couple was intoxicated enough not to care where she and her chosen dalliance were—while he blinked at her in bemusement. Her fingers went immediately to work on his second belt, a plain, sturdy affair much like its laden twin, and soon banished it to the pile of shed garments. Then the cord fastenings of his plain trousers, which soon lay open. He arched slightly, aiding her in whisking them off, as he had whisked away her clothes. He sprang free, hot and heavy and stiff; velvety, she found, when she touched him. Dórainn groaned, feeling her fingers around him, and then groaned again when she flitted away to examine him more fully, from the top down.

“Rapunzel—” his voice audibly faltered as her lips brushed from the hollow under his left shoulder down, across the flat, tight nipple that lay against his chest. “—Come here,” he finally managed, tangling his hands in the hair near her scalp and guiding her back to him so that their mouths could mesh again, briefly this time.“Let’s free this for you,” he murmured, sliding away the leather thong that had bound the end of her rapidly loosening braid, and helped the process along with swift fingers, until at last her long, heavy blond hair hung in silky sheets around them, pooling on the bed and cascading waterfall-style down her back. He stroked a hand down lightly over the length of it, savoring, then slipped beneath the spill of it and stroked up along her side, this time taking in the feel of satiny flesh. She shuddered, and arched her back as more heat coiled in her belly.

“It always surprises me, how much I need you,” he whispered, and rolled, placing her beneath him again. She smiled, and rested her hands on his shoulders, clinging close to him. “For I do, you know.”

“Good,” she purred, drawing a faint smile from him, and gasped quietly when his fingers slid gently into her, stretching tenderly, testing her size and dampness. Her legs opened for him, and a moment later he moved closer, to cradle himself there. The tip of him, large and velvety, rested at her entrance, hesitating for a moment.

He kissed her as he moved forward, swallowed her shocked little cry at the invasion.

Dórainn paused when he felt the thin barrier of her maidenhood. There was no magic on earth that could take away this pain, as much as he might wish there was. It seemed vastly unfair to him, that a woman’s first lover must cause her pain, that she must receive it in order to receive him fully. He wanted nothing to hurt this woman, ever, and wanted even less to be the one causing the pain.

But gods help him, he couldn’t simply stay here and go no further. His body demanded he bury himself in her, and some primal instinct that cared nothing for gentility or love roared that taking her innocence would bind her to him all the more.

He surged forward, into the tight core of her, and for a moment, his mind blanked, filled with nothing but sensation.

_Too tight, too tight—_ her mind shrieked, shying from him. There was burning pain there, a sense of being entirely too full where before there had been aching emptiness.

“I think we’ve done it wrong,” she managed, fighting the need to twist away from him—it would only make it worse, she was certain. _It hurt—_

“No, love,” he murmured, looking down with his silver eyes still full of desire, now joined by sorrow and concern that hadn’t been there previously. His hand found hers, fingers laced with hers, tightened on them. “This is how it is done.”

“It’s not very pleasant.” There was a slight note of panic in her voice now. “I can’t—please, I think—”

“Easy, Rapunzel. It will get better, I promise you,” he crooned, stroking a soothing hand down her side. She was squeezing him as she struggled to adjust, and it was driving him mad. His skin shuddered, and the muscles under it quivered with the effort of control.

“No, I—” she shifted beneath him. An expression of surprise flashed through her blue eyes. “It _is_ getting better.”

“Yes. I promised, didn’t I?” He chuckled, a tight, terse sound. “It can be better yet.” He slid back slowly, just a bit, then forward again, creating delicious friction between them.

“I think—do that again,” Rapunzel requested, arching and lifting her hips to aid him.

“Be assured, my love, I shall,” he replied hoarsely, and proved himself truthful by easing away, further this time, and then returning. He set a pattern, moving slowly. Out, a little further each time, until he pulled nearly out of her with each stroke, then in, diving back into the sweet, fiery heat that was Rapunzel.  

 The heat grew unbearable far more quickly this time, the pleasure somehow deeper, heavier. Hotter. The slide of him against delicate, damp flesh, with all of it thousands of tiny nerve endings, was driving her up, and higher still. He buried his lips against her neck, tasting the salt of perspiration, the sweetness, nipping the slim tendons that ran there with careful control.

“ _Bròineán_ , you are driving me out of my mind,” he whispered, nuzzling just under her ear. His hand slid down her body again, from where it had briefly lit upon her breast, kneading it like an overgrown cat, to their joined heat.

She shivered at the touch, felt herself balancing again on that paper-thin peak that was suspended above pleasure.

His body, already tense, went rigid above hers. Suddenly the thrusts of his body into hers grew faster, and harder, flinging her over the edge, farther than before, deeper. Somewhere, above, there was a muffled groan of pleasure, and then he was with her, floating slowly down through the haze of intense satisfaction.

The initial discomfort, she thought, when she was capable of thinking again, was more than worth the pleasure. Warmed, she cuddled closer against his side, where he’d settled to avoid crushing her.

“There won’t be any pain next time,” he muttered sleepily into her hair. “I promise you.”


	29. Chapter 29

Tam stared, wide-eyed, from his place hidden in the underbrush beside the road, as a group of horses flashed past, finely built warhorses with soldiers on their backs. They were armed to the teeth, and heading unmistakably for the sorcerer’s home—no one else lived along this path, and no one else in this village could have fallen into the ill graces of Seòbhrach Rubha’s king—farmers out here had no need for Rìoghainn’s city, with its lower selling prices and distance.

Pale with fear, he turned, and sprinted back for the village center, moving as quickly as his feet would take him. 

* * *

 

They had made love twice more that evening, breaking once, between, to hastily consume a summoned picnic dinner there in bed, before he whisked the remains away and they fell back into one another’s arms. He was careful with her, mindful of tenderness, yet demanded all of her be given over to his safekeeping. In return, all that he was, he poured into her. She learned his body, and her own, even as he explored every inch of her flesh, slowly, with all the concentration of a master at work. But finally, in the small hours before dawn, they slept, tangled together like vines.

But now, as the pale fingers of light began to creep over the horizon, still hidden by the trees, and the birds started to stir, Rapunzel’s eyes blinked open and a yawn stretched her jaw. She sat up slowly, gently untangling herself from Dórainn’s embrace. He looked peaceful, she thought, smiling slightly to herself, pleased that he did, at last.

He shifted slightly, disturbed by her absence, and sleep-glazed grey eyes opened just a crack to peer confusedly at her.

“Rapunzel?” his voice was thick and husky, hardly more than a whisper of sound. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll be back in a moment. Go back to sleep,” she whispered, smiling.

“Hmm,” he responded vaguely, closing his eyes again and obviously letting himself sink back into the warm haze.

With quiet movements, she donned her dress and simple under-things, carrying her shoes out with her as she crept from the cottage.

Dawn was still edging into their Northern land, soft light with the faintest bite still to the air, even at Midsummer. A small herd of deer grazed unconcernedly across the stream, just visible among the trees. A demon in the form of a white owl perched in the low branches overhead, blinking sleepily in the last few moments before it returned to its day-time lair. All was quiet, save for the beginning sallies of the early-rising birds, and a muted mist still clung to the trunks.

There was a strange alertness stirring within her, though, at odds with the peacefulness of the scene before her, some restless energy. Otherwise, her body felt deliciously languorous, limber and loose, with only a faint tenderness to acknowledge her passage from maiden to woman.

And, of course, there was the solid conviction she’d woken with: she was pregnant.

She likely wasn’t, she knew—the odds were against it, considering the difficulty so many couples had conceiving. And in any case, it was far too early to know yet—her monthly time wasn’t due for another few weeks. Yet she couldn’t seem to brush aside the possibility that a child would soon be growing within her. Couldn’t quite deny the quiet leap of excitement, of joy, just under her heart, the one that was quelling the nervousness that wanted to clench in her belly.

Would it bother him? Having a child, especially so soon? she wondered, wandering a bit farther from the cottage, intending to lean against the railing of the horses’ paddock and contemplate the deer while she thought, or perhaps enter the barn and make sure the little mare and Muir were properly brushed down after she had interrupted Dórainn last night.

The thunder of hooves on damp earth made her turn. A moment later, a hard arm slammed against her ribs, curling around and yanking her up.


	30. Chapter 30

The Prince shouted orders to his men, clutching close to his chest his stunned fiancé. As the plan directed, several flaming arrows went winging their way to pierce the wooden roof of the Demon Mage’s lair, and crashed through glass windows to further the damage. If they could do anything to hinder the man, lessen their chances of failure, they would do it.

In his arms, with a suddenness he hadn’t expected, Rapunzel came abruptly out of her shock, fighting against his grip.

“Hey!” he cried, holding her more firmly as she struggled, and had his horse prancing beneath them nervously.

Then the world went all to hell when she screamed. 

* * *

 

It wasn’t the scream that woke him. High-pitched and keening, it certainly may have, had he still been drifting towards Nod, but what had actually woken him completely from the hazy half-sleep Rapunzel had left him to indulge in was the smell—gods, he hated it—of smoke. The creeping, silently seductive scent of destruction tickling his olfactory senses had brought him dead awake, and tossing off the covers like a man stricken. He’d taken only the second needed to grab for his trousers and stuff his feet into his boots—and then had come Rapunzel’s cry. Everything inside him had frozen solid at the fear in her voice, the sharp, wordless exclamation of rejection and horror.

The smoke was thicker in the main room, and a second’s glance around told him that arrows had been the flame’s carrier, not natural causes of any kind. Cold fear became fury, icy and terrible, as he stalked from his burning home, magic sparking at his fingertips with the force of his anger. 

* * *

 

Dórainn was a force to behold, completely worthy of the title _Demon Mage_ , as he strode, icy-eyed and hard-faced, from the burning cottage. Immediately, the tight knot of terror that had lodged itself in her throat eased slightly. Magic, an invisible, heatless shimmer, filled the air around him, and overhead, the wind began to howl like a demon through the treetops, whipping away the mist that curled lazily there. His state of dishabille meant nothing—it seemed to belie no more vulnerability than when he was fully shrouded in his black robes—instead, wearing only trousers and boots, he seemed even more dangerous than ever. In the chaos, she could see his eyes, ice bright and twice as hard and cold as mere frozen water could ever hope to achieve.

A slam like a crack of thunder boomed out, and both the little mare and Muir rushed out of the stable behind the house, blindfolds made of summoned scraps of cloth peeling away from their eyes as they bolted into the paddock, away from the stable and fiery death.

“Archers!” The Prince shouted.

“No!” she yelped, struggling again, but the soldiers paid no attention to her. Arrows poured through the air, headed for her lover’s body like two dozen incensed hornets. The world contracted, centering on him, while screams filled her head, strangling in her throat.

They struck, instead, a wall of fire, incinerating on contact. A moment later, the wall of flame receded, gathering again at his fingertips, while the cottage stood smoking, its roof blackened and smoldering.

 “You come to my home, Prince of Seòbhrach Rubha,” the sorcerer growled menacingly, low voice quiet but perfectly audible across the entirety of the clearing, “ _set it on fire_ ,” there was a wealth of hidden horror there, in that growl of a voice, a hint of terror gleaming briefly in grey eyes, visible only to someone who knew to look, “—a cowardly attempt at killing me that would have also resulted in the death of two fine horses. You bring with you soldiers, and you attempt to attack my person, my dwelling. _And_ ,” he snarled, “you have the _audacity_ to touch the woman who will be my _wife_.”

A burst of muttering started among the soldiers—attacking a mage was one thing, even one with the reputation this one had, killing him was fine, but taking hostage a mage’s claimed woman couldn’t be a good idea, even if she was the Prince’s fiancé.

Perhaps, just maybe, it would be prudent simply to live and let live at this point.

The Prince tossed up his head, keeping his eyes locked with his adversary’s. “Swords,” he called back to his men. The ringing of metal on metal filled the clearing as the blades cleared their sheaths.

Silver eyes narrowed dangerously, and one by one, those swords fell to the ground, little cries of shock and pain echoing as hilts grew too hot to hold on to.

“You would be wise,” Dórainn rumbled, summoning the swords to form a pile beside him with a negligent flick of his wrist “to turn around, right now, and leave.”

“Stand your ground,” the Prince shouted. The sorcerer could see Rapunzel’s flinch from the loud voice right next to her ear. It made another wave of rage sweep through him, ice cold, and twisted the knots in his belly all the tighter. Not because he thought she was in danger from the Prince, or because she might choose to go with him, instead of staying here, but that he would lose control of the magic that was surging in him, so dangerously close to the surface.

“Let her down,” he barked. Damn the boy, didn’t he understand that one didn’t mess around with a mage, particularly an angry one? This was the second time Caoin had decided to fool with his life, and the first time had nearly sent the Heir tumbling to his death.

“Never!”

“Caoin—Prince Caoin,” she corrected herself. “Please, just put me down. I’ll be alright.”

“No, my lady—I promised you I would rescue you, and it is clear now that I failed to keep you safe from that rouge!”

Dórainn swore virulently, and overhead, thunder rumbled where there had been only clear skies. “For the gods’ sake, boy, would you listen to yourself? This is no bard’s tale. You didn’t rescue her—you dragged her down a bloody tower!”

“You put her there!” the Prince retorted.

“A tower,” the sorcerer continued doggedly, “I might add, that you were trespassing in.”

“You were the one who pushed us!”

“No, you little fool,” he snarled, “I pushed _you_. Only you. And only, I’d like to point out, _after_ you decided to sink a blade into my shoulder, having already invaded my home for  at least twice. You’ll have noticed also that I was then obliged to _catch_ you. My list of grievances with you grows longer every time you show your face, Caoin of Seòbhrach Rubha.”

The Prince had, at least, the decency to flush red, the mage noted.

“Now _put her down_.” The compulsion he added to the words was by no means subtle. The Prince jerked as though he’d been slapped in the face, and released her immediately, leaving her to slip off his horse’s back ungracefully. Three steps were all she’d managed, though, to take when a soldier steered his steed into her path, blocking off her escape route. The sorcerer glared, about to remove the newest obstacle—

“Oi! Whaddiye think yer doin’ there?”

Distracted momentarily, Dórainn looked to the path, and blinked at the growing crowd of people there. They were villagers—he recognized several of them, and the visiting Gypsies, a few of whom had approached him for various magically repairs and remedies. Too, he recognized Iain MacKay, the tavern-owner, who seemed to be the leader—it was he who had shouted. Tam, his red hair bright against his colorless face, stood next to him. Iain’s hand snaked out a moment later, to rest comfortingly on the lad’s shoulder.

The soldiers’ heads turned from the gathered people, to their Prince, then to the sorcerer, confusion and unease growing in their eyes.

Rapunzel, however, was taking advantage of the chaos. She slipped easily beneath the nose of the large cavalry charger that had blocked her way. The soldier noticed, and roared a protest, wheeling the creature around, but too late. She was already caught tight against the mage’s chest, safe.

“Ye an’ the lady alright, there, sir?” Iain called to the sorcerer, ignoring the pesky soldiers who stood between them.

“We’re fine, MacKay, I thank you,” he replied, shifting Rapunzel so that she was pressed to his side, one arm encircling her shoulders protectively. The soldiers still wheeled confusedly, their leader abruptly unsure of his course, now that the tide had changed so drastically. Who knew that the sorcerer had a village of supporters, ready to fight to keep the girl?

“An’ yer ready, o’ course, fer the fair, aye?” there was a sly note, testing and teasing, in the man’s voice now. “’Ese men’re yer guests, Ah see’t naow. My apologies, then, fer mah rudness.”

Dórainn blinked, no other indication of his confusion in his impassive face.

The villagers and gypsies held no weapons but baskets of food and wares, wore not rags and working clothes but their festival finery, appeared not threatening but nearly peaceful, and apparently fun-loving. This was no obvious rescue—this was subtle, he realized abruptly, a tricky, brilliant plan—if it could be pulled off.

“I hadn’t invited them, no, but they are, I suppose, welcome to stay,” he managed magnanimously, while the dumbfounded soldiers stared in confusion at the mage and Iain. "Peacefully. I'm not adverse to removing them forcefully, should the need arise."

The people behind Iain cheered, and swarmed forward, a wave of setters-up, skipping children, men and women; flooding into the open area around his home with wagons and stalls and tables. Within moments there was music, and people hawked wares.

“Dórainn?” Rapunzel whispered, watching wide-eyed from her place next to him. “What is going on?”

“This, _bròineán_ ,” he murmured in her ear, “is, by all appearances, a rescue. It seems that the villagers have taken matters firmly into their own hands, and have set up a fair on my front lawn.” He watched, rather in awe, as several Gypsy girls fluttered around the Prince and his men, convincing them to come down off their horses, and to eat, or partake of other worldly pleasures. The horses were quickly led away, and released into the pasture with the mare and Muir. The entire thing had been preplanned, and it was executed with consummate skill.

“But…it’s working,” she pointed out, disbelief in her voice.

“Never underestimate the appeal of a fair, it seems,” the sorcerer mused, looking just as puzzled by the phenomenon.

“Alright ‘ere, then? No’ tae singed, are ye? ‘ey did do a number on yer ‘ouse, didn’t they,” Iain joined them, clapping the sorcerer familiarly on the shoulder. The mage raised an eyebrow at the gesture—he hadn’t realized that the tavern owner had decided, on their few, brief encounters, that they were friends—but simply agreed.

“Sorry aboout invadin’ yer property here,” Iain continued. “Las’ night, there were a couple o’ soldiers tha’ came in, askin’ af’er ye, an’ Tam came runnin’ inta my tavern less’n an hour ago, scared tae death ye’d be murdered in yer sleep, so me’n Domhnall—ye ken Domhnall, aye? ‘E’s tha’ tall gent o’er there, wit’ the nas’y-lookin’ curved blade—”

“Scimitar, I believe,” Dórainn said, looking in that direction. The man in question was tall, and built like an ox, with sun-browned skin and a wild mane of black hair that was in places beaded and braided. And the scimitar wasn’t, by far, the least of the steel adorning the man.

“Aye, well, ‘e’s the Gyspy King ‘ere in the North—we’re cousins, aye? So we think, well, gud ole Alasdair’s helped us plenty, an’ wot’s Rìoghainn ever done fer us? So ‘ere we are—ye an’ yer Lady’re safe ‘n sound, there’s plenty o’ strong backs ‘ere who owe ye their gratitude tae ‘elp ye wit’ yer roof, an’ we’ll send yon soldiers back tae Rìoghainn penniless. Tha’ way, evrabody wins, aye?”

“You know, Iain,” the sorcerer commented slowly, “I hadn’t particularly noticed the streak of mercilessness in you before. But it’s clear, now that you’ve revealed this plot. I owe you, and Domhnall Gypsyking.” The last was stated in a voice as resolute as stone.

The playfulness left MacKay’s face, and with it, some of the heavy drawl. “My thanks, sir.”

Dórainn waved away his thanks with a short gesture. “You need anything, you ask me,” he reiterated sternly, as though he doubted Iain would.

Iain nodded, just as solemnly.   

“Good,” the sorcerer said, a quirk to his lips. “Now, please, go and enjoy your handiwork, my friend. Rapunzel and I will dress, and then I believe we will join the festivities.”

“No ‘urries,” The barkeep assured him, an amused glint returning to his dark eyes. “None o’ us’ll be goin’ anywhere quickly. No’ wit’ all the ale ‘ere. An’ cheap.”

Dórainn smirked agreeingly, and MacKay wandered away with a saucy wink that brought a blush to Rapunzel’s cheeks.

“He thinks we’re going to—”

“ _Mi goal_ , everyone here thinks we’re going to make love the moment we walk into that cottage,” he whispered into her ear, lips brushing against her tangled hair. “Just as they are aware that’s what we were doing last night. None of them are fools, with a notable young idiot as the exception. Come now, we wouldn’t want to disappoint them, would we?” His elegant hand trailed over her spine in a caress that made her shiver.

“Dórainn—I mean, Alasdair, we can’t—”

“M’lord!” Tam cried, dogging around a Gypsy and flinging himself toward them. The couple was given only enough time to put a few inches of space between them when Tam collided with his master, throwing his arms around the mage.

Dórainn staggered under the assault, his hand going to the youth’s back to steady them both. “What’s this, now? Tam?” again, bafflement was in his voice.

Tam mumbled something inaudible against his sternum. The mage frowned.

“You thought what, lad?” he inquired, and gently drew the boy away. Tam sniffed, and scrubbed at his eyes self-consciously.

“Ah thought they’d try tae ‘urt ye, or yer Lady,” the lad muttered, looking down. He was shamed by his own lack of faith in his master—it wasn’t for nothing the man was a master mage, and he should have known the sorcerer could take care of himself. He felt foolish, now, for his worry, presented with the overwhelming evidence that the man was perfectly alright.

“I thank you for your quick thinking, Tam,” Dórainn said, crouching to put himself at the boy’s eye-level. “I’ve never had anyone come so quickly to my defense.”

Tam flushed with pleasurable embarrassment, and squirmed where he stood.

A rare rumble of laughter shook the sorcerer’s frame for a moment, emerged as a deep chuckle. “Go and fetch your mother and siblings, if they’re not already here, and enjoy yourself today. Rapunzel and I will clean up and join the festivities shortly.”

“Aye sir! Thankee, sir,” he said, moving away. “An’, sir?” he asked, turning back for a moment as the mage straightened.

“Yes, Tam?” Dórainn inquired as he slid a subtle arm around Rapunzel’s waist and drew her gently back against his chest.

“Ah’m glad ye an’ the Lady’re okay.”

She couldn’t see the smile on his face, wasn’t sure if it actually made it onto his mouth, but it was there, warming his gravelly voice to velvet. “Thank you. I am glad as well.”

Tam flashed them both a final smile, and darted off into the crowd again.

“He never does walk,” the sorcerer muttered, his chin resting lightly on the top of her head, so that she felt the slight vibration of his throat as he spoke. “Come, my love—we’ve a fair to host, and neither of us is dressed for it.”

“Of course,” he said a moment later, closing the door behind him, “we don’t _have_ to go back out.” He drew her against him again, crushing her lips under his to forestall a protest. Relief made for a potent aphrodisiac, and fire was already curling in his belly, having her here, safe in his embrace.

“We could stay here, instead,” Dórainn whispered seductively in her ear, trailing heat down her throat, while his hands slid up from her waist to frame her ribcage, his thumbs brushing alongside the outsides of her breasts.

She bit back a moan, seizing his wrists, clinging. “We can’t—”

“We could,” he murmured against her collarbone. “Shadow copies, a silencing spell. They would never know.”

“I would,” she gasped, finally summoning the will to move away from him. He let her slide away, his fingertips trailing down her spine as she went into the bedroom. She was already wearing her dress, but her hair was a tangled mess, and she was appealingly disheveled. The mage sighed, and followed her, resigned to his fate.

“Allow me to help you, _mi goal_ ,” he said, taking the brush from her fingers and gathering the silky weight of her glorious hair. Long strokes quickly began easing through the knots, until the lot of it lay smooth and uninterrupted as it poured down her back. Deft flicks of his fingers bound it into a braid and tied it with the scrap of ribbon she passed him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, when he lay the brush down on the small table in front of the mirror, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“If you are in earnest about attending the fair outside this house,” he rasped in return, silver eyes molten in the mirror, “you must stop looking at me like that. I am a man, love, I will not last long against temptation.”

She blushed, fighting to hide a pleased smile. “Go put on a shirt, Dórainn. We promised we’d go out.”

“Oh, very well,” he sighed, recognizing defeat. His reflection disappeared as he moved across the room to the chest at the foot of the bed, where he pulled out fresh clothes. 

* * *

 

They emerged amid whispers and winks, half-smiles flashed, and then replaced by sincerely welcoming greetings from the mage’s neighbors. He introduced her to them, surprising both her and them by remembering the names of men and women he hadn’t seen in upwards of ten years, and keeping a leery eye on the soldiers while he made the rounds with _his_ beautiful fiancé. None but the most observant and military-minded noted that he kept his body between her and any of the Prince’s men who happened to be in the immediate vicinity, and that he was always in contact with her—a hand at the small of her back, on her shoulder, in her hair, or wrapped around one of her own, more delicate hands.

The sun rose higher—midday meals started coming into evidence, and games began. A caid match, played with a leather ball and a high pain tolerance, started up in the clearing behind the house. There were only a few accidents, easily fixed with a poultice or two and another mug of ale. Dórainn patched the players up with a wry shake of his head, and waved attempted compensation away.

“Go spend it elsewhere, if you’re so eager to give it away,” was all he said, and wrapped his arms around Rapunzel’s waist.

_His_. He couldn’t seem to fully comprehend the knowledge that she was, at last, finally, his. If he held her close too often to be modest, he didn’t care. He wanted her again, his blood thick and hot, his body hard against the crease of her sweet little derrière—a feat, he thought, with a bemused inner chuckle, for a man his age. And far from being alarmed by his desire, the minx made it harder still to act as though nothing was happening, by leaning back against his chest and rubbing against him like a cat, setting more fires under his skin. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion he was fond of—though the gods knew he’d had plenty of experience with it: the five months of her absence had seen him from unbearably weary to pacing the floor, eaten alive by mingling longing and fury that some other man could have her when he couldn’t—but it was there, fully alive and well-aware of every man (and, occasionally, woman) who looked at her with a glimmer of lust in his eyes. He restrained the primitive urge to herd her back into the house and make it absolutely and perfectly clear that they had no chance of taking her away, but the urge was there, wickedly tempting, especially as the writhing crush of people began to make him increasingly edgy.

Dórainn managed to convince her to slip back into the house with him briefly in the lazy afternoon hours when activity lulled to the adults sitting and chatting while the children ran around, undeterred by the rising temperature. The activity would swell again later, when the heat of the day began to abate. There would be, he didn’t doubt, a bonfire, more games, more drinking, more endless talking. And, naturally, more flirting. The Prince and his men had been swamped by girls in bright dresses, armed with smiles and tall mugs of ale. By now, each had more or less paired off with one lass. Caoin, the mage noted with raised eyebrows, was holding on his lap a particularly pretty young thing with long dark hair, wearing a brilliantly colored kilt—one of the gypsies who had come to him for a spell worked a few days earlier. He watched them a moment longer before he and Rapunzel meandered toward their home, wondering if the Heir had any idea that the beauty he held was a noted expert with blades among the gypsies, and happened to be Domhnall’s second-youngest son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not happy with this bit, but ah well. Means to an end, I suppose.


	31. Chapter 31

_There was something here_ , he thought, and was simultaneously baffled and frightened by it, almost flinching as a warm, callused hand stroked over sensitive skin.

Discovering that the pretty thing he'd tugged away from the center of the festivities was, in fact, a boy, had been a shock, one he had overcome without too much hardship. It wasn't so foreign a thing, after all; a man was entitled to wear whatever he pleased, and court whomever he chose. But.

Discovering Callán's inherent maleness had no effect on the hardness of his cock…that had been a greater shock, one that was still taking some adjusting to.

The greatest of the self-discoveries made, though, was the sense of  _knowing_ , deep in his gut. A sense of mine-protect-cherish- _mine_ , which wasn't something he'd ever felt before for anything other than the kingdom that wasn't yet his. And it was stronger by far than anything he'd thought to feel for Seòbhrach Rubha. The notion of leaving this connection, leaving _him_ , behind, was one that already summoned the chill of clammy sweat down his back, and knotted his belly painfully.

Callán shared the feeling—even the Prince wasn't such a fool he couldn't see the same amount of baffled devotion in the man's eyes, feel the half-panicked clutch of slender brown fingers on his skin.

"—'s too much," the Gypsy had whispered, already trapped by whatever the binding emotion was, his struggles making him cling and shiver, while Caoin shuddered convulsively and wrapped himself around the man, something dangerously akin to  _caigeán_ , the Old Language word for  _mate_ , seeming to float past his ear on the wind, like faery voices.

If this was how the mage felt for Rapunzel, this madness of passion and fear and need, Caoin thought, drawing Callán closer against his body, warming him in the aftermath of their encounter, he could be forgiven all but his most reprehensible actions.

* * *

A knock on the door invaded the peaceful silence inside the cottage, drawing them from a sound sleep.

"If we ignore it, it might go away," he pointed out, murmuring into her hair, while she lay quiet, drifting between awareness and sleep. He was curled around her, enveloping her so that Rapunzel's head lay on his shoulder while he was pressed to her back, his slaked manhood against the curve of her bottom. His hand cupped one soft breast, the other wound under and around her belly to lock her against him, his fingers splayed as though to protect the child that could already be growing in her womb.

More pounding on the door had the mage's hopes popping like so many soap bubbles. He untangled them carefully, snatching up his pants as he went.

"You again," he growled, opening the door to the Prince. Domhnall's son stood beside him, pale golden face blushed red, black hair suspiciously tousled.

"Dór—Alasdair?" Rapunzel had followed, wearing his robes swathed around her so that not a hint of skin showed, her feet shoved hastily into boots to avoid running afoul of the glass that still littered his floor. Regardless, she looked wondrously wanton, and the knowledge that under his robe she was naked curled warmly through him. "What's the matter?"

"We appear to have guests," he replied woodenly. He stepped aside reluctantly, allowing them to enter and drawled sardonically, "Mind the broken glass, now." He was rewarded with the Prince's flush deepening dramatically.

"Sit, then, and tell us what's brought you again to my door," he instructed, swinging the kettle into the fireplace and stirring the fire with a wave of one hand, before taking up his rightful position behind Rapunzel's chair, his hands on her shoulders.


	32. Chapter 32

"You want me to do  _what?_ " he inquired after several minutes, glaring at the boy sitting at his table. The gall of the request—the utter  _gall_  of it—nearly had him spitting nails. "And what in the  _gods' names_  makes you think I'd do something like that for you?"

"But it can be done?" Caoin inquired, leaning forward.

"Strictly speaking," Dórainn growled, with a ferocious frown, "Yes, it's likely possible. It would, however, take dedication on both parts, a complete willingness of both parents and their families. More power than could possibly be handled by one mage, even a master. I seriously doubt that the change would be permanent, either, and it would be dangerous in the extreme. And I'm not—"

"Would't be long enough to…conceive an' give birth, though?" Callán, the gypsy boy, inquired hesitantly. "Sir?"

A furious breath hissed through his teeth. " _Presumably_ , with effort. It will— _would_  take considerable research before such an endeavor could be attempted. It could well fall flat, and it would almost certainly harm you considerably. To say nothing of the protection required to protect you both from anyone who would attempt to sabotage the pregnancy—and Gods know, there certainly will be some malcontent who wishes to stymie such a thing. The two of you are trying to fight the natural order of things. There  _will_  be unforeseen complications.

"Regardless," he growled, "the two of you haven't known each other longer than a day. You," he turned cold eyes on Caoin, "were convinced Rapunzel was your fiancé until just this morning."

"I didn't love Rapunzel—sorry," he said sheepishly, glancing at the girl. She smiled reassuringly, and leaned back, pressing close to the mage. "I love Callán."

"And it's just that easy for you," the sorcerer said, skepticism evident. He considered the Prince a moment, and then his chosen lover, weighed the degree of intelligence evidenced between them. "Well, perhaps it is. And you think feel the same, Callán?"

"I do," the gypsy lad answered. "He's no' the first…"

"Lover?" Dórainn offered reluctantly, when Callán's voice trailed uncomfortably away. There was an almost sickly unenthusiastic note to his voice.

He smiled shyly, in thanks. "—lover I've taken, but with him, it's different."

A muscle twitched in the mage's lean cheeks. "On a day's acquaintance, and naught between you but a—" he bit off the words, pulled several more deep, calming breathes into his lungs and slowly released them before attempted to speak again. "And you're determined to do this, the two of you, regardless of my or anyone else's wishes or reluctance?"

Nods greeted his inquiry. Quietly, silver eyes closed, temples pounding angrily at the tangled logistics, he resigned himself to his fate.

"If you do this thing, you must be hand-fasted, at the very least," the mage said finally, after a long silence. "I will staunchly refuse to aid you unless you have been hand-fasted, and then happily married for at least a year, and I will advise every master mage of my acquaintance to refuse you as well, do you heed? Even without the texts before me, I can at least tell you that a pregnancy engendered in a male will require both of your acceptances of the child, regardless of sex. It will likely also require an absence of any negative thoughts towards the child. There must be no regrets, with one another, with the child. If I help you, and one of your parents object—and they will, if I know anything of them—then they cannot be with you when and if you give birth. And I would you thought first of adopting, or hiring a woman to carry your children for you, rather than try this thing, bloodlines be damned. Those are the conditions of my agreement."

Silence reigned again in the cottage as the two young lovers thought about the choice set before them.

"I will do it," Caorin announced, though now lines of worry marred his brow and tightened his lips.

"I—I will try," Domhnall's son said, at last.

The mage looked at him, and the mage's scowl softened slightly. "I am not asking you to make a final decision yet. You must be sure before you say yes. There will be opposition, and people who hate you for what you are thinking to do. The marriage between two men is not a common practice here, though there is precedent, particularly in the Southern cities, but a man giving birth will undoubtedly create problems for you. If, after the year of hand-fasting, you choose to marry—and you must still decide if that is what you want—if after that, the two of you wish to try for a child, I will  _consider_  aiding you. You would be protected, and your child as well, to the best of my ability. But the conditions must be fulfilled and the final decisions made."

"No, sir, tha's no' what worries me," Callán denied, shaking his head. "I care little fer other's opinions about me, an' I know tha' Caoin is mine. It is  _mi athair—_ my father's reaction I worry about."

"I see." And he did—the Gypsy King wasn't likely to take kindly to his second-youngest son marrying another man, and eventually attempting to have that man's child. Especially when it was Seòbhrach Rubha's heir his son sought to bind himself to.

"We will speak with your father," Rapunzel promised, before Dórainn could say anything at all, only gape in horror at his lover.

"Won't we?" she inquired, looking up at him, eyes soft.

The mage scowled again, but slumped slightly as his normally iron will melted under her gaze. "Rapunzel, you will ruin me. Yes," he conceded with a sigh. "I suppose I can talk to Domhnall—"

_Demon Mage_ , sneered a tiny voice, startling him away from words.  _You don't deserve her, do you? No, no, you don't._  The image of a flaming serpent flashed before his astonished eyes.

What in the world was this dark madness doing, creeping out now? Rapunzel was here, with him now—she loved him. There was no  _reason_  for him to be feeling this.

_She doesn't love you, foolish man. She is amusing herself, toying with you._

"S-sir?" Caorin inquired, staring at the mage. He'd paled, so suddenly grey that the Prince half rose from his chair, unsure what to do. His lover, Callán, looked concerned as well, and Rapunzel twisted in her seat to look up, clutching his hands as though to anchor him.

Silver eyes flashed in confusion, fighting to think over the wave of despair and guilt, terrible guilt, which swamped him.

_You'll ruin her life, won't you, Demon Mage? She's run once, why not again? And the boy there, he had his arms around her, his hands on her. Surely you don't think he cares a bit for that Gypsy abomination? He's playing you for a fool, monster, and you're letting him._

Those were not his words, not his thoughts.

"D— Alasdair? What's the matter?" His hands had gone cold, abruptly, shocking against the warmth of her fingers. His gaze locked with hers, dark and empty of the happiness that had resided there earlier.

"I—I'm not sure," Dórainn answered truthfully, his deep voice a painful rasp. "I believe…" a particularly strong wave of hopelessness swelled through him, stealing his breath for a moment, while the insidious voice crowed in triumph. "I think perhaps a melancholia curse. I hadn't recognized…" But it would explain much, he realized, pushing away the dark, unwanted emotions. He was no eternal optimist, but neither had he ever been much for brooding over things past. Certainly, with the damning aid of the vicious little voices, he'd done far more than was his norm.

"Caoin," he turned to the boy, as the voices slipped away again, warded off by his sense of purpose, his strengthened mental guards. "When did your father's mage turn up, do you remember?"

There wasn't another 'true' magic user, save Roarke, with more than vague intuition and simple healing that some hedgewitches had, for a hundred miles, and Roarke could have killed him many times in the past years, without lifting a finger, if he'd wanted to harm him.

Dórainn didn't know much about Cheann Sgaoilte, other than he was hardly a mage at all, but melancholia spells were easy to do, required little more than malicious energy and focus—they fed off the victim, for the most part, taking the negative energy of perceived failures, guilt, and sorrow. They could be incredibly difficult to diagnose, especially when the target was already a dour, non-communicative man who had few friends. And Sgaoilte had plenty of reason—his King had ordered him to act against the Demon Mage. It wasn't as though his energy was uncommon here in the Northlands, or difficult to locate for someone with even a whiff of the Power.

"Ah, let me see...nearly five years? Yes, it was around five years ago," the Prince confirmed, still watching him warily. "Are—are you…alright?"

"At the moment, no. But having figured it out, it's nothing a potion and a simple incantation will not fix. I will be perfectly fine by tomorrow morning." But first, he would track the faded trail of magic back to its source and deliver a proper retribution. Such an attack, vicious and cowardly, deserved a challenge, at the least.

And it just so happened, he needed to go to Seòbhrach Rubha anyhow. But first things first—Domhnall needed winning over.

* * *

The Gypsy King was easy to find, roaring in laughter with his barkeep cousin, surrounded by family and subjects. The mage nodded at his loud greeting, and they exchanged the necessary pleasantries for several minutes before Dórainn managed to lead him back to the cottage, accompanied by Iain, who's head was hopefully cooler than Callán's father's.

Domhnall's thick eyebrows shot up when he entered the building, seeing his second-youngest sitting beside Seòbhrach Rubha's High Prince. But he wasn't the Gypsy ruler for nothing—he was canny enough to know explanations would be forthcoming. The Demon Mage was a straightforward man, not one to fool around with pretense and small talk for the sake of small talk.

"May I offer either of you tea?" Rapunzel, properly dressed once more, inquired. "Or something stronger?"

Neither man wanted any; they shook their heads politely, and took their seats.

"A very short time ago, your son and Prince Caoin approached me with a question, and something of a request," the mage told Domhnall when they were all settled. "They have, ah, fallen in love."

"What—" Domhnall was half out of his seat when the sorcerer held up a long-fingered hand to halt him.

"They have given the situation some thought—Caoin, you will recall, is required to produce an heir; a legitimate one, at that. That is why they came to me, to inquire if it was at all possible."

"Ye little—" the King of Gypsies growled, looming over his son's suitor, his thick, enormously strong fingers curling into the boy's shirt, lifting him away from the floor. "If ye've so much as touched 'im, I'll castrate ye."

"No need for that," Dórainn said easily as Callán's eyes grew huge, stepping away from his position behind Rapunzel's chair before the Prince could do something foolish, like attempt to retaliate, and reached between the Prince and the King to loosen Domhnall's grip. "It would be very messy, and my floor does not appreciate being soaked in blood, having already today been burned, pierced, and strewn with glass." Having freed the young Prince, the mage slipped between him and Callán's enraged father, his slender body a better shield than the strongest of steels.

"I have instituted several demands, before I agreed even to research the possibility of attempting pregnancy in a male—one of them is that they must be happily hand-fasted, then married for at least a year."

"Nay son o' mine will hand-fast a son o' Rìoghainn's, much less marry 'im."

"That," Dórainn murmured, stepping forward in a way that made the Gypsy retreat an equal distance, to ensure violence did not occur, "is a very good way to lose a son."

Rage flared deeper in Domhnall's black eyes, and personal spacing be damned. "Are ye  _threatenin'_  me?"

"Not in the least," the mage denied, his silver gaze meeting the gypsy's black one steadily. "Children can be particularly determined, even more so when faced with opposition. There is a saying, 'cutting off one's nose to spite his face.' Perhaps you are familiar with the adage?"

"I am."

"It will apply to this situation if it is not handled with care. That I am sure of. It is why I did not refuse more strenuously."

Domhnall growled, deep in his chest, and returned to his seat, anger still burning brightly in his eyes.

"What do ye suggest then, as the best course o' action, mage?" he demanded.

"I would advise agreement to their year's trial hand-fasting. But Rìoghainn still needs to be spoken with. Caoin cannot simply return home with a consort in tow."

"Why not?" the Prince inquired sharply. It was precisely what he had planned to do.

"Because your father would accuse your chosen partner of black magic at the worst, of seduction at best, and have him imprisoned, if not put to death. And then he would come after both the other gypsies and me," Dórainn replied matter-of-factly, flicking a cool glance back at the boy he still stood before. "Which would be the start of a war the likes of which Seòbhrach Rubha has never seen before. That is why you will not."

Stepping from in front of Caoin, he returned to his stance behind the chair Rapunzel sat in quietly, observing, and laced his fingers with hers when she brought her hand up to touch his. His thumb swept across the smooth skin of the back of her hand, soothing and stirring at once.

"Iain?" Domhnall inquired.

"Ah would listen tae the mage. He's naught steered me wrong a'fore."

The mage's face didn't change, though he could never remember an instance where the barkeep had asked him for advice. Iain MacKay was one of the most capable people he knew—the man was certainly able to make his own decisions. Thus, strictly speaking, he supposed, never could he have steered Iain wrong.

Domhnall nodded slowly, then looked to his son. "Callán? D'ye really wish tae marry," he nodded stiffly at Caoin, never taking his eyes from his son's, "'im?"

"I…I do, Da. I'm in love with him." Callán met his father's eyes easily, not cowed by his parent, though it was easy to see the nerves on his face. "I'm…determined to do this. With or… without your approval, if—if I 'ave to."

It was through great control of self that the mage's eyes did not detour disbelievingly to the ceiling.

"I'm no' thrilled about this, I'll say tha' now. But…if yer tha' determined, ye 'ave my blessing.  _Provided_  ye stick tae the mage's instructions. Yer no' tae take unnecessary risks, no' fer bloody Seòbhrach Rubha."

The Prince protested with an irritated noise in the back of his throat, and a stiffening of his spine. It brought the Gypsy King's attention around like a wolf scenting prey. "An' ye. If ye 'urt 'im, gods 'elp ye, because I'll no' rest 'til I've your 'ead on a platter."

Caoin's chin rose proudly, fire sparking in his eyes. "I've no intention of hurting him."

"It was a warning, boy, not an accusation," the sorcerer said wearily, closing his eyes as a headache returned, to pound at his temples. "If you intend to live long enough to sit on your throne, you must learn not to pick fights with those who can make life very difficult for you. It's called 'tact'. Perhaps you've heard of it."

Rapunzel angled a glance up, amused and vaguely reproving. If you don't want him to react, it seemed to say, don't antagonize him. He raised a supercilious eyebrow in return, challenging.

"Very well," Dórainn concluded the meeting. "The Prince leaves tomorrow at dawn." A sharp glance toward the boy silenced any arguments before they arose. "I have business in Seòbhrach Rubha. I assume you'll want to go as well?" he inquired of the younger Gypsy.

Callán nodded. The mage nodded in acceptance, and faced the boy's father again. "I doubt it wise for the entirety of your people to descend  _en masse_ , as I doubt you like to leave them for any amount of time, and" the corner of his mouth twitched slightly, "neither of us are particularly near and dear in Rìoghainn's heart.

"Your lad will be safe enough with me, if you'll trust me with him. If they go through with the marriage, I would be putting all of the wards I know on them anyway. It would be equally easy to place the first of them on him tomorrow."

"If ye don' mind lookin' oout fer 'im, I trust ye tae keep 'im safe 'ntil I've sorted things oout 'ere, and can join ye in Seòbhrach Rubha," Domhnall agreed, and thrust a massive hand out. The mage met it easily, the clasp forearm to forearm, a warriors' grip.

Iain rose, as did the Prince and his intended consort, hands clasped surreptitiously. At Domhnall's nod, they preceded him out. With an ironic look shared with the mage, he nodded a final time in farewell, and exited the cottage, courteously closing the door behind him.

A moment of silence hung in the cottage before Rapunzel stood, and turned to him, searching his face with concerned eyes.

"Klamath weed? Lemon balm?" Two herbs she knew him to use to alleviate melancholy, spell-induced or otherwise. The concern in her tone almost drew a smile to his lips.

"Later," he assured her, sliding a hand down her hair. "I want to try and track the magic back first."

"With all of these people here?"

"Unless I miss my guess, the trail of magic will be rather clear. Don't fret,  _mi goal_. Go on outside—I'll join you when I've finished."

"Alright," she replied, looking unconvinced but moving toward the door, to let him do what he needed without the distraction of her presence. The sooner she went, after all, the more swiftly he would take the klamath weed.


	33. Chapter 33

True to his word, the mage slipped up behind her less than an hour later, narrowing silver eyes at the two rather young men who were speaking to her with the eagerness of a pair of puppies. Immediately after his arrival, they began to droop, until at last they slunk away in defeat.

"That wasn't kind of you," she reproved him gently.

"No," he agreed cheerfully, leading her away from the bonfire and into the shadows, "but they've escaped being turned into donkeys, so they should count themselves lucky." He found a spot he particularly liked, where the soft grass hadn't been too badly trampled by playing children, and sank with her down onto it, his back to a convenient tree and her head resting, tentatively at first, and then with confidence, on his shoulder.

"You've tracked him?" she asked, after a few moments of quiet contemplation.

"Yes. It was Cheann Sgaoilte, as I expected."

"Does he suspect that you've found him out?"

"Oh yes," the mage murmured, his deep voice very soft and very hard. "I would think so."

Her head shifted on his shoulder as she glanced up at him. His lips twitched, and he raised a hand to stroke her hair comfortingly.

"You really shouldn't ask if you don't want to know, Rapunzel," he forewarned softly. "I rarely regret my actions."

"It's too late to warn me off, Dórainn," she replied in a maddeningly reasonable tone. "You aren't nearly as vengeful as you seem to enjoy painting yourself."

"Hmm," he allowed, unconvinced, and they sat in content silence. The bonfire was starting to die out, children were slumping, or weeping with weariness. Chatter had quieted to murmurs, and plenty had slipped away into the shadows with their partner of the night.

* * *

Dawn came excruciatingly early for most the next morning. Dórainn was, as always, a ridiculously early riser, and he took rather perverse pleasure in waking the Prince and his men just as light began gathering in the east, unsympathetic of aching heads and unmoved by tired eyes glaring dully back, or the offended shrieks of lovers thrust abruptly out of bed. By the time they were stumbling up and gathering their things, Rapunzel was awake, dressed, and calmly fixing tea for the two of them, bringing both cups with her as she joined the mage outside, accepting as thanks a brief kiss pressed to her temple. The Gypsies, too, were gathering to return to their semi-permanent camp on the opposite side of the village, having been woken by the noise of the soldiers, and Domhnall joined him in standing over the crowd, observing the chaos that was preparation as the edge of the sun peeked over the horizon, and standing witness to the protection spells the mage cast over his son. They were mounted and away before it even cleared the line of the earth.

* * *

They made good time—within a week, Seòbhrach Rubha's gates were in sight. It took little more than an arched eyebrow from the mage and a reassuring smile from Caorin to get the city's gatekeepers to let them in.

People, farmers coming to market, shopkeepers, and the myriad others who swarmed the city streets, stared as they passed; their Prince was a common sight, as were the soldiers, but the others; the black-clad mage, the lady some recognized as the Prince's fiancé, and a girlish-looking Gypsy lad; drew eyes.

The Palace gatekeepers were more difficult to win over. Seasoned veterans to the man, and well-aware that the King had no love to spare for the dark stranger who loomed quite effectively over the Prince. Torn between admitting the Prince and his fiancé, and keeping out those who were bound to send the King into apoplectic fits of rage, they were finally forced to allow all to enter. Pages and stable lads ran to take their horses; Caoin saw the mage stay the lad who approached wide eyed to take his elegant black for a moment, and then send the boy away with even larger eyes and a huge smile. But Alasdair's eyes were cold as ice again when he turned around, indicating sardonically for the Prince to precede them into the Palace.

* * *

They were escorted immediately to the Great Hall by an anxious seneschal, without even a pause to clean the dirt of traveling off. The courtiers, dressed in their usual finery, stared from behind fans and other accessories.

"The years have done nothing to sweeten your temper, I see," Dórainn greeted Rìoghainn with insolent casualness, coming up to stand next to the King's son, looming none-too-subtly. "Or dull your impatience."

Rìoghainn stood abruptly, glaring daggers at his unwelcome guest. "What are you doing here,  _Demon Mage?_ " Gasps rang through the hall as the youngest darlings of the court learned just who the fierce-looking man beside their Prince was, and stared, too intrigued even to feign a faint.

"Escorting your progeny home, from a decidedly misguided adventure. Be glad I decided he made a better lad than frog."

"Father," Caoin's bright tenor rang out strongly, eager and enthusiastic. "There is much we must speak of."

"What filth has that mage been filling your head with?" Rìoghainn demanded, eyes flicking sharply from his Heir to his self-proclaimed enemy.

"You cannot blame me for his current misadventure, Rìoghainn," Dórainn drawled. "Though you may try. You'll want a private chamber for this discussion."


	34. Chapter 34

"Precisely  _what_  happened that requires a private meeting?" the King snarled when the last servant shut the door, having bowed himself out.

Caoin glanced beseechingly at Dórainn.

In response, the mage raised both eyebrows. "Oh no, lad. I won't be telling this story. I was not the one who made this choice."

Shoulders slumping only briefly, the Prince began speaking, in fits and starts at first, and then with determination. In direct contrast, Rìoghainn's face grew redder and redder, his blue eyes more and more furious.

"You  _what?_  Have you taken a leave of your senses, boy? Have you any idea at all what would happen? And you," he turned almost immediately on Callán. "Did you really think I wouldn't see through this? Try your whoring elsewhere—t'will get you nothing here, Gypsy!"

"Rìoghainn, you go too far." It wasn't Dórainn who spoke, nor Caoin. Rapunzel's voice snapped out with the crack of a whip, stinging the King to silence as he stared at the girl who'd, for a short time, been his ward.

"Think for a moment, won't you, what a royal consort is expected to do. There's only one ironclad requirement: heirs. Your son has found someone he loves, who is willing to bear his children, at the possible expense of his own life. What more devotion do you want displayed?"

Seòbhrach Rubha's King still stared, goggle-eyed at the cold-eyed slip of a girl who sat with the poise of a queen before him—she would have been queen, he thought furiously—calmly slicing arguments from his hands.

"Legally, Callán—that's his name, incidentally, since you took not the time to learn the name of your son's future consort—has no more official power than Caoin gives him. He is, by all evidence, intelligent, clear-headed, and very polite. He does not lack for will, nor courage; he's here, after all, taking your abuse without argument, isn't he? Look beyond his coloring and gender, and you will find a quite satisfactory partner for the future King of Seòbhrach Rubha." Dórainn's hands rested gently on her shoulders, his silent support bolstering the anger that kept her voice sharp and strong, to keep it from flagging.

"Father, I did not come for your approval," Caoin's voice cut in, uncharacteristically quiet, and very serious. When those congregated turned to look, his eyes were dark and pinned on his sire. "Your blessing would be welcome. But Callán and I will marry, even if it means I cannot be your heir. We will go away, if we must, and then he need not risk himself for our children."

Rìoghainn fought a brief, internal war, hunting for civility. "You all keep saying that—that  _he_  is going to risk himself for children. How would it be possible that he could even have them?"

"With a great deal of magic, and the appropriate procedures, nearly anything is possible," Dórainn said calmly. "Male pregnancy has been achieved before; it can be done again."

"By who? You?" there was a hint of snarl back in the King's voice.

"Had you thought to bribe another master mage into the area for this? Possible, certainly, if your coffers can take it. But I doubt you'll find another resigned to it, and you certainly won't find one who can call as easily on the expertise and aid of Roarke. I am afraid you are stuck with me for the moment, Rìoghainn."

"How do I know you won't seek control my son with your magecraft?"

"As Sgaoilte attempted to influence me, on your orders?" A cold, frightening smile played about Dórainn's lips while the King choked on splutters again. "Because I don't care to—I have no want for political power, or money, or whatever it is you seem to think drives me. And because that kind of trickery is particularly cowardly."

"Every man has a price," Rìoghainn disagreed, red-faced. "You must want something, or else why would you do this?"

"Peace and quiet, Rìoghainn. You and yours have irritated me unceasingly, for years now. I have had enough of you."

"So you're going to ensure my son marries for love, with another man? How does that bring you peace and quiet, what you  _supposedly_  want?"

"In the long run, it works very well. I aid in providing Seòbhrach Rubha with Heirs, and in return, Seòbhrach Rubha's next king formally declares an end to hostilities between us, and leaves me and my betrothed alone. That's my price, that single declaration, and not even from you, but from him. Little enough to ask, I should think."

"If it is in my power, I will give it," Caoin piped up again earnestly. The mage's grey eyes rested briefly on him, appraising.

"I have no doubt you would," he replied to the boy, before turning back to his father, one brow quirked slightly higher than the other.

A long silence stretched in the room.

"I cannot fight this, can I, in any way that would not lose me my son," the King rumbled finally, glaring at him. Anger, and something curiously like fear still flickered in his cool blue eyes.

Gravely, Dórainn shook his head. "No, Rìoghainn, not that I can see."

"And you, naturally, are the only master mage for miles. Roarke is famous for his dislike of cities and of nobility."

"Rightly so, I've come to think. An armistice, then, Rìoghainn, at least until you have your Heirs?"

With a scowl, and then a shrug, the King agreed. "You say this can be done safely."

"I have insisted on a year of marriage first, after the traditional hand-fasting, before any research is done. A testing of the waters, so to speak."

Rìoghainn's eyes narrowed in consideration, and then he nodded slowly. "Wise."

"I like to think, occasionally, that I can be."

"Impertinent," Rìoghainn grumbled.

Rapunzel didn't see the twitch of Dórainn's mouth, but she didn't need to as his deep voice was filled with amusement. "When the situation calls for it, old one."

The King looked at him thoughtfully. "And you still won't agree to advise me, as you did Murchadh?"

"No. I have lost any taste I might have had for the intrigues of court, and I have little desire to place myself at the beck and call of any ruler, not only you."

He paused briefly, and then continued. "I will, however, once in a while, fulfill a contract. If it is to my liking."

"I see," Rìoghainn said.

"Perhaps you do," the mage allowed. "But this is not the place to be discussing that. I will begin placing the various wards on your son and his betrothed tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Seòbhrach Rubha's ruler inquired with a puzzled frown. "It's early yet, ma—Alasdair? Is it still Alasdair?"

"It is. And it is early yet, I agree. But aside from needing to prepare a proper room for the warding, I have another bit of business here in Seòbhrach Rubha." His voice was arctic. "With your mage."

* * *

"A mage battle?" Rapunzel inquired, utter disbelief written on her pale face. They stood in the room he'd been given for their stay, the door spelled against any curious eavesdroppers. "You can think of no better way of sorting this out than a mage battle?"

"It's the principle of the thing," he replied calmly, donning the protective black leather robes he had the right to wear as a master mage.

"How utterly, stupidly  _male_ ," she stated in frigid tones, pacing away again.

"Be that as it may," he agreed, "it will happen. Magic has been brought to bear against me—it would be an unpardonable sign of cowardice not to challenge it. Better to fight one duel than invite the challenges of every mageling for a hundred miles."

"Utterly, stupidly male," she repeated, enunciating each syllable, glaring into the mirror at him. "You'd broken his spell, and retaliated," Cheann Sgaoilte had emerged—only with extreme reluctance and because a small demon in a sparrow's shape chased him from his tower room—with 'craven' printed in Dórainn's distinctive, elegant hand across both cheeks, bisected by his nose, in black ink that had apparently resisted all efforts to remove it.

"There is very little danger,  _gaol_ ; there are plenty of rules in place that have been set down since ancient days to prevent mages from killing each other. And if nothing else relieves your mind, allow me to assure you that Sgaoilte is little more than a hedgewitch in over-embroidered robes. He has very little magic that can be used offensively."

"I…I understand why you have to do it," she said, walking back to him, the anger fading from her face, to leave it simply pale. Heart twisting a bit, he turned, gathering her close and holding her, until at last she relaxed into his embrace. "But I don't like it," she whispered against his chest, resting a cheek upon the thick, supple leather that protected it.

"I know, Rapunzel. If the consequences for not fighting it were not what they are, I would turn the other cheek." Said cheek came down to rest lightly on the top of her head, while elegant hands stroked her from ribcage to hips.

It brought a ghost of a smile to her lips. "You wouldn't," she disagreed, remembering the ink scrawled on Sgaoilte's face. "You have too much pride for that."

"Perhaps. But I wouldn't trouble myself with this foolish duel, elsewise."

"I know," she repeated, settling closer against him, as though she sought to melt into him, become one.

A knock on the door brought the tension rushing back into her body. "My Lord? It's nearly time."

"Thank you, I'll be out in a moment," Dórainn replied, his voice pitched to carry through the warded door.


	35. Chapter 35

_This couldn't be happening_ , he thought, flicking desperately through the huge text open on his desk. The spells were highly advanced; many written in the incomprehensible Old Language. There wasn't one in the book that wasn't dark, and that didn't bear a heavy burden.

The Demon Mage couldn't be dueling him in— _Gods_ , he squeaked, less than a quarter-hour. It simply couldn't be happening.

Aha! He shouted aloud, pouncing upon a spell he could understand at last, written in the common tongue, in the very back of the book. A Summoning; easy words, simple inflections—not much of an incantation at all, really.  _Ye Gods_ , not even the Demon Mage couldn't handle that thing, could he? Bargain, yes, yes—he was good at that. He could out-bargain anyone. Five drops of his blood from the left hand to seal the contract. Alright, yes, he could do that.

Perhaps, he thought, beginning to relax again, this duel wouldn't be so very difficult, after all.

* * *

The duel started, as mage duels always did, not at dawn but as the sun sank below the horizon. The two combatants stood a bit apart on the wide, grassy stretch between the stone walls of Seòbhrach Rubha and the trees of the forest. They stood easily, one dressed in stark, serviceable black, barely distinguishable from the shadows that reached from the trees, the other in blue and silver velvet.

Around them, at a respectable—safe—range, witnesses watched, as of yet unlit torches in hand, with braziers carefully set up to delineate the boundaries of the dueling field, as they flung light into the growing darkness.

First, the salute: a half-bow to the opponent, eyes never leaving his face. And then the challenged would begin.

Fire first, the Demon Mage thought, his silver eyes clear and sharp as the ice spears that crowned the mountains, reflecting the light of the flickering flames around him. Because men like Sgaoilte would always come first with fire.

Burning balls of energy poured from the air, slamming against the icy shields that sprang up to defend, causing them to sizzle and ricochet back toward their maker.

With fluid movements and steady intensity, Dórainn strode forward, a twin set of blades building themselves from the air and ice he gathered from his surroundings, to form stiletto points and edges like razors.

Blue eyes widened for a moment across the darkening field, and then narrowed, as he reached deep beneath the earth for the iron that lay in the bones of the earth, calling it roughly to him and clumsily shaping it into a long weapon.

Holding it before him with both hands, Sgaoilte backed away, circling as he fled, to avoid leaving the line of braziers. When Dórainn drew too near, he swung wildly with the sword, a sideswipe that would have cut the slender mage in half, if ice and wind had not knocked the blow aside with a bell-like glimmer of sound. Lucky for the lesser mage his opponent was skilled with a blade; mage duels weren't meant to kill, or even to harm the combatants, but to display their skills—the victor was the stronger, the faster, the cleverer, the more educated.

"I'll beat you," Sgaoilte snarled, heaving another blow toward Dórainn.

"Not like this you won't," he replied with maddening calm, parrying again with another peal of his long dagger. The second twin snaked up to lock with the iron sword at the hilt, and an uncomplicated jerk backwards and up ripped the awkward weapon from the lesser mage's hands. A flicker of magic, invisible but tangible, shredded the power that held the iron in sword shape, and sent it back to its resting place beneath the soil.

Another flicker released the water and the wind as he waited to see what Sgaoilte would turn to next. There were five stages to a mage duel; this was only the second.

Dórainn could hear the murmur of an incantation from the other man as he backed up, transmuting imps from the shadow-matter that existed in a separate plane. They formed, wavery bundles of deep-dark with red fire for eyes, which sometimes absorbed the light, and occasionally reflected it off of shiny green-black scales. They circled, the four of them, moving with an odd lurching gait.

He didn't bother with incantations, just reached out into the night. A demon, currently inhabiting the form of a  _cuir piseag_ , a smaller cousin to the cuir cat-fiadhaich, answered the mental inquiry. With metaphorical eyebrows raised—it wasn't often that the sorcerer humans termed 'the Demon Mage' actually called on demons, though when he did, he repaid his debts—the demon agreed to the deal he offered, and the bargain was struck. Within moments, the cuir piseag loped out of the trees, leaping one of the braziers before landing beside the mage; likely, simply because it could. Demons tended to be a flashy lot.

The gasps from the group outside the barrier were audible, but they were ignored by the combatants.

"Showing your true colors, are we?" Sgaoilte sneered. "Your name fits, Demon Mage. But I must admit to surprise," he continued signaling his imps forward. "That you would use such a lesser demon as that."

The demon beside him glanced up.  _Supercilious bastard, isn't he?_

"Yes, decidedly."

_I'm almost happy to do this for you, if only to silence him,_  the demon said, springing forward to send the first of the imps back to the shadow world. It was almost disgustingly easy work, and the demon said so in no uncertain terms when the last of the imps were gone.

Dórainn thanked it quietly, confirming the debt of a favor, to be called upon at any time, and sent the cuir piseag on its way. And watched the weaker mage with considering eyes. Sgaoilte was looking rather pale, and sweat gleamed dimly on his face. If he had much power left, it would be a shock and something of an amazement. There were two more stages to get through before the battle was over—unless, of course, he succumbed to magic fatigue. That would end the duel there and then.

Fire flickered over the Demon Mage's dark form, only barely illuminating him. Sgaoilte watched him as he frantically thought to every spell and scrap of magic he knew of. Most of his skills required props—water mirrors, herbs, rituals, incense. A battle sorcerer, he wasn't, with the quick offensive and stolid defense of a warrior mage.

His mind! The thought came in a burst of inspiration—he'd infiltrated the Demon Mage's psyche once before, to plant a seed of melancholy. Perhaps he could use that now, try and further the madness, just enough to distract him. A surge of adrenaline shot through him, bolstering him.

Dórainn felt the subtle tendril of magic reach for his mind, and raised both eyebrows. He hadn't expected the lesser mage to be subtle—none of his other attacks had been—nor had he expected much degree of skill. But this must be Sgaoilte's area of expertise, the influencing of others' minds. Steadily, the man's magic crept closer, winding surreptitiously around him, like sentient chains about to tighten. The madness, contained in a mental box until he could find or take back the focus Sgaoilte had used, stirred within him, reacting to its master's touch.

"A dishonorable approach," Dórainn remarked offhandedly, freeing a bit of the dangerous white energy that flowed like blood through his veins, and overwhelming the slender chains of mage-craft his opponent sought to bind him with, shooting the pale embers of power back at the other sorcerer so that Sgaoilte yelped and dodged out of the way. "But then, I've come to associate you with such things. Make your last choice and let us finish this farce of a duel. I grow weary of wasting my time on you."

There were far better things to be doing—soothing Rapunzel came immediately to mind, as he could feel her silent anxiety from where she stood to the side with the other witnesses, one pale hand pressed to her mouth. Knowing it, knowing that she had subverted her needs to allow him to do what he had to, warmed him and brought forth a determination not to make her do so again.

So this ridiculous fight would be finished. In the morning, he was finding the nearest holy man, judge, or ship's captain—he wasn't fussy—to marry them. And the moment the matter with the Crown Prince was sorted, he was whisking her and himself back home, and the next person who disturbed them was going to find a battalion of snarling demons on his doorstep.

Hard grey eyes flicked over the velvet clad figure before him, when at last that figure stopped the twitching dance of one avoiding ricochets. The sun had set completely, leaving only the faint lightening of darkness to the west. Braziers burned dimly, but it was bright enough to see rage twist Sgaoilte's face, and lit a fire in his blue eyes. Dórainn frowned.

"You won't condescend when we're finished," the other snarled. "The world will know, Demon Mage, that you're nothing but a hack, hiding behind a nickname and summoned minor demons!"

Dark, winged eyebrows rose at the latest verbal assault. "I will take that statement to mean that you've made your choice. Implement it, or lose your chance to use it at all."

"Oh, I shall," Sgaoilte sneered, and launched into another incantation. This one wasn't muttered beneath his breath, but shouted, in a voice deeper than seemed possible.

" _Anmoch bi ann aotrom_." The frown was back on the Demon Mage's face, drawing his eyebrows down. Another summoning? They had covered that, already. It was a disqualifying move to use the same type of magic twice.

" _Claoidhteach dèainte socrach_." Not simply a summoning, then, but a Greater summoning, and dangerous for it, especially since the summoner seemed not to understand the possible consequences of forcing a creature of Power to this plane.

"Sgaoilte—"

" _Dubhghall aig Ifrinn_."

_Gods preserve us_ , Dórainn thought, and lunged for the other mage. He meant to summon a Greater Demon. And not one known for its leniency.

" _Thoir á tuathál ubaír mi_." A flash of silver winked through the darkness, and the hiss of an indrawn breath was deafening in the utter silence that reigned abruptly in the confines of the dueling arena. A mere moment later, the stronger mage's hands locked over Sgaoilte's shoulders. Dórainn could scent the tang of blood that bound the contract. Triumph filled his enemy's eyes, slightly mad now, as the Demon's energy began to flow through him.

" _You_   _imbicile_ ," Dórainn hissed, feeling the dark energy curl slowly out from him, trying to wrap around his arms, reaching for the power that lay in him, so much better to fuel Dubhghall's emergence. With a jerk, he snatched his hands back, and thrust the other man from him.


	36. Chapter 36

The wind picked up suddenly, a wicked howl that buffeted the two magic-crafters with an icy gale. A brazier off to Dórainn's left exploded upward in flame, drawing a few muffled screams from the huddle of by-standers. Another, and then another did the same until they stood within a veritable cage of fire. The earth beneath his feet shuddered and bucked as massive amounts of power roiled, caught somewhere between this world and another.

And then it was still again, as the Demon fully took Sgaoilte's body, and leveled the surges of energy. Blue eyes went green, and then yellow as it settled into its newest host, and those golden orbs locked on him. Similarly, an impression of inhumanness settled into the bones of the lesser mage's face, making it harder, sharper. Less pretty, and more powerful.

"Is it you I have to thank, then, for bringing me forth, or are you the pest the contract wishes eradicated?" Deeper than the mage's voice, without the lilting accent of the region, the Demon's voice remained smooth as silk, as warm and sweet and seemingly comforting as mulled wine.

"The one who summoned you is the one whose body you have taken," Dórainn said carefully, knowing better than to be lulled by the voice. "He was a fool, to bother you for a mage duel."

Dubhghall eyed him consideringly. "Yes, I think I rather agree. But you mortals often are fools, aren't you?"

"Perhaps we are."

A tendril of dark power reached out, to tap lightly against the pale, glittering power that was the Demon Mage's aura. Yellow eyes widened slightly, half a dozen paces away, and the sorcerer tensed.

"You are the other," the Demon said, almost wonderingly. "I thought I felt such power, when I was emerging, but it was snatched away so quickly…This," using a hand, it waved contemptuously at Sgaoilte's body, "has not half the energy you contain. His spirit quavers within, small and none too useful."

"You seek to propose what, Demon Lord?"

"A trade, I think," the Demon's voice grew warmer, sweeter. Eminently more reasonable. "I will release this worm, free and clear. That is what you would have me do, no? Release him, and return to the void I've come from."

"You spoke of a trade." Dórainn's voice, by contrast, was steady and cool. Unconvinced. "What is it you want in return for this overwhelming generosity?"

A smile, terrifyingly charming, grew on Dubhghall's borrowed face. "The use of your body, for a sennight, in your world."

"I think not," Dórainn replied calmly, "I do not whore my body out."

"You do not care much for your fellow mage, do you?"

"Not particularly, no."

The Demon nodded acceptingly, and considered again. "Just your energy, then, how about that? Not so much to leave you helpless, of course.

"For only a sennight," the Demon continued, when the mage continued to look unconvinced. "It's not so very long," he cajoled.

"I must decline, Demon Lord."

Dubhghall's face darkened. "I require  _something_  in return for my peaceful return to the void."

"I have no wish to be molested because an idiot hedgewitch decided to meddle in powers beyond his ken. Nor do the people of this area deserve to be terrorized because of one fool's mistake. He knew the potential consequences of his actions—take your payment from him, Demon Lord."

The Demon chuckled darkly. "Mage, you should hear his spirit's whimpering—it is pitiful in the extreme. Still, your energy is far more potent than his, and your will is intriguingly strong, for a human's. And your ruthlessness—I quite enjoy it. A sample, then—tonight, and tonight alone. Half, precisely half of your unused power. That and no more, is my price. With it, I will free this worm without… _too_  much damage done, and return without protest to my resting place."

"You will, naturally, swear to that," Dórainn stated, producing a scroll and a quill with a flick of his wrist. The verbal promise was already scrawled on the otherwise blank surface of the parchment, it awaited only signing.

Sgaoilte's mouth, edged with the Demon's darkness, kicked up at the corner in amusement. "Certainly."

It was signed with a flourish, and a moment later, scroll and quill both were gone, the weight of a contract settling like spider silk over them light and unbreakable. Face set, the mage stepped closer.

"You are amusing, mage. One would think you expected to be physically defiled, not merely share energy," the Demon chuckled, thrusting out one of Sgaoilte's hands. "Come on, now, don't be shy."

The mage met the grip, braced as his energy began to flow out of him. "I've found that many of your kind thrive on shock," Dórainn replied guardedly. "Safer to be wary than sorry." The energy was flowing away faster now—the expected fatigue was growing.

The Demon chuckled again, the sound harsh, inhuman. And, absurdly, playful. "You are a wise one, aren't you? And marvelously uptight—it's really no wonder we demons like playing with you, when you react so nicely."

"All the same," he answered, and couldn't help that his voice grew colder, and tighter than it had been a moment before. More energy was gone, and wooziness was setting in, to mingle with numbing fatigue. Dórainn clamped down on control. It never paid to show vulnerability to a demon, Greater or lesser.

"I shouldn't tease you, I'm sure," Dubhghall said, humor in its eyes. "Especially not when you're giving me what I want, and falling down doing it." Sgaoilte's free hand came up to grip the mage's shoulder, steadying. "It would be such a shame to see you crumple."

An arched eyebrow, and a nod preceded the mage's "thank you."

"Nearly done, mage. Ah," Dubhghall sighed, a disconcertingly pleasured look flickering over his face. "There we are. You do indeed have lovely energy," it remarked, releasing the mage's hand. Dórainn staggered, and steadied himself before the Demon could reach out again. "How surprising-you mages so rarely contain such quality..."

"So you've said, Demon Lord."

"If ever you have need of a Greater Demon," the Demon murmured, "do feel quite free to call. I would not mind another opportunity to partake of your energies."

Dórainn managed, with effort, to quell a shudder. The absolute last thing he needed was for a Greater demon to form a fixation on his magic—there would be no rest, no peace. "I will keep that in mind."

Another Demon laced smirk flashed across Sgaoilte's face, and then the process reversed itself—the ground rumbled, the braziers shot high into the sky, the wind shrieked through, buffeting the humans. And then all was still, and the last of the green leeched from the lesser mage's eyes, along with every drop of color from his face. His blue eyes grew almost impossibly wide.

"Here now," Dórainn snapped, as the man looked as though he would sink bonelessly to the ground. Two steps, and long, strong hands clenched on Sgaoilte's shoulders, belying heaviness of fatigue in the Demon Mage. Around them, the various barriers and restraints that had bound them within the dueling arena snapped.

"Come," the Demon Mage ordered, when the other only stared, blue eyes flickering from fear to incomprehension, and pulled Sgaoilte along with him towards the group of watchers, as they moved towards the two magic-crafters.

The two groups merged into one at the line of braziers.

"Ahh," the sorcerer groaned, as Rapunzel stepped into his arms. "No, no," he murmured when she jolted back, searching for the wound that elicited the sound, and gathered her close again. "I'm fine. See? I'm only weary, not hurt."

"Mage," Rìoghainn said, his tone low. Without breaking his embrace with Rapunzel, the sorcerer's head turned until he could fix the King with a piercing gaze. "What—what has happened? We felt the ground move, and the wind, but—"

"Your friend there tried summoning a Greater Demon. That's what happened."

Gasps came simultaneously, one muffled by the leather over-robes he wore, the others loud and clear in the night. A tiny squeak followed the muffled gasp, and the girl struggled back to peer again at his face, searching, though for what, Dórainn couldn't be sure.

"If you insist, I will relate the full of it when we return to the castle. Not out here."

* * *

It was a reasonable demand, and an hour and a half later, the sorcerer, his fiancé, the King, his son, and the Prince's consort all sat in the same chamber they had assembled in many hours before. Sgaoilte was sleeping under a nurse's watchful eyes in one of the many guest chambers, as per the mage's suggestion.

"I would imagine it was desperation that drove him to the point of actually using the summons," Dórainn said, stifling a yawn. The room was sufficiently warm, and the chair he sat in sufficiently comfortable that weariness was translating itself into sleepiness. Rapunzel's position in the chair beside his only compounded the sense of relaxation.

"Your mage, Rìoghainn, is really little more than a hedgewitch. A clever hedgewitch. Water mirrors and crystals might help him focus his power, but he hasn't the strength, nor the training of a full mage. He has a good position here and mage duels were created to reveal ineptitude. Desperation is an understandable reaction," the mage held up a hand to forestall the imminent explosion of rage. "He has adequately fulfilled your needs up until this point, Rìoghainn. You have no need to keep a master mage on retainer, and, quite honestly, I'd doubt that you want to. Remember that, and remember also that I have yet to study the amount of damage taking a Greater Demon into himself has inflicted upon him. He may be far too damaged to continue in this profession any way."

"Would you—"

"No. I've just told you, you do not need, nor want, a master mage on retainer. We are not toys to show off to your friends and enemies alike. Hear me, for I'm tiring of repeating myself. We are, at the core,  _weapons_ ; particularly unstable weapons. By taking one on retainer, you accept responsibility for  _every action_  that mage commits. If he is well enough to continue, Sgaoilte is precisely the type of magic-crafter you want. He is weak enough, and smart enough, to be controlled."

"Who would control him?" the King inquired angrily. "You saw what happened! The man summoned a Greater Demon! Would not a master mage have more control?"

"Certainly. Enough control to wash your mind, and your heir's mind, and every mind on your council clean and take over your city as a shadow king. I promise you, Rìoghainn, that is a definite possibility. You open the doors of power to someone who holds in his hands enough energy to tangle successfully with Greater Demons, you will lose any battle that matters. And to answer your other question; Sgaoilte can be controlled by the Mage Council, naturally. I will be sending a missive to the capital the moment we are finished this conversation, in fact."

There was a long stretch of silence. "The Mage Council?" Callán asked at last. "What's tha'?"

"A council of mages," the sorcerer replied, tongue tucked firmly in cheek. A moment later, he relented. "It is the ruling council for magic-crafters in the surrounding countries. Most, if not all the master mages are on it, as are many of the lesser crafters, especially if they've had a formal education. They act as judge and jury in situations like these."

"They dispense justice and punishment?" the King inquired, baffled.

"Rarely, but in this case, perhaps. That is usually left to the wronged party. It is their task to watch, to insure that the balance of magicks is not tipped. A Greater Demon was summoned, a great deal of energy expended. They'll want to be informed."

"But…you dealt with it. Right? It's gone back." This came from Caoin.

"Yes," another yawn battered against his teeth. "The Demon was dealt with. It shan't bother you."

"How did you send it back?" Rapunzel's voice inquired. He could feel the sweep of her eyes, knew they were taking in his pallor, the weariness in his eyes.

"We struck a bargain, to our mutual satisfaction. Now," he cut the conversation to its end, rising, and fighting back, with less success, another yawn. "I will take my leave of you, gentlemen, and seek my bed." His eyes met Rapunzel's, and a moment later, she rose as well, following him in making her excuses.

* * *

"What really happened?" she inquired as they walked back to their rooms.

"Oh, we struck a bargain, as I said. The Demon would go back peacefully, without excessive damage done to Sgaoilte, and I gave half my unused energy. Do not look so worried, my love; it isn't a dangerous loss."

He didn't like seeing her so pale and solemn-eyed. He turned away from the door he'd just finished (discreetly) warding, and embraced her so that she leaned back, into his reassuringly solid length, his hands slipping 'round to rest over her belly.

Almost as though he guessed, she thought, and wondered at the twinge near her heart. She had yet to confirm whether or not a babe grew beneath his hands—her monthlies weren't due for nearly a week, and none of the usual warning signs had manifested—there was no fatigue, nausea, or cravings. But something in her still insisted that life was blooming within.

And her lover, the father of her potential child, had gone heedlessly into danger. Could he imagine, even for a moment, what it had done to watch as flames shot high into the sky, feel the wind and the earth thunder, and know that it was not a thing Sgaoilte could have done, and not something Dórainn would have done. A Greater Demon—the notion sent shivers down her spine, even though the crisis was past.

But he was safe once again, and that was what mattered for right now. The sick knot of tension that had lodged itself immovably just beneath her ribs was uncurling. The concept of a child could be dealt with later. She had nine months before the babe, if there was a babe, came.

"I realize that I have been remiss," his voice was deep, and very slow, "that I have not discussed with you this topic before now."

She froze. Topic? What topic was it, that he was bringing up in that slow, careful tone, as though to weigh her reaction and his words on a scale? What more could change, what more could he be revealing that required such seriousness and such haste that it could not wait until tomorrow, when they were both so exhausted?

"Easy, my love. Do not stiffen up," he requested as she tensed. His hands shifted to the sides of her waist, stroking gently up and down, his thumbs at her back, petting away some of the tightness that had settled there. "You may remember our scuffle with the Prince, a week ago."

"Yes," she allowed, still wary of where this conversation would go.

"Do you recall that I claimed you as my betrothed before the Prince and his men?"

She frowned slightly—she hadn't recalled that, no. She'd been far too concerned with getting free, and being terrified Dórainn would be hurt to concentrate on the argument ranging back and forth. "Ye-es," she said. What of it, anyhow?

"I would like us to cement that promise." Gods, it was difficult to ask this. That surprised him. She was his love, one and true, and he wanted to spend the remainder of his days with her, but still, it was difficult in the extreme to ask it.

Perhaps that was how it should be, though.

"Will you marry me?"

She blinked up at him, that tiny confused frown still tugging her eyebrows together, and turned about so that she faced him. Those crystal blue eyes searched his face. He gave her time, let her seek what answers she sought, and fought down uneasiness.

"Why?" she finally asked. Her voice was calm, face, serene. But her eyes were not—they reflected back at him the same whirl of love, uncertainty, and need that knotted his belly.

"You carry our children—Yes, I can sense them. There are two. That is one reason. You make my house a home. That is another. I desire you, physically, as I have never wanted another person, you draw my mind, you make me feel. Those are reasons.

"You can bear the silence that I need, and you can give me the isolation from cityfolk and villagers that I require, even though you have a social soul and have need for other voices, other people. You give me the warmth of your feelings, and allow me to feel my way to giving you back what you need. You seem willing to overlook the twenty-three years between us. They are reasons."

He shifted without removing his hands from her waist, shrugged uncomfortably. "There are more reasons, but I cannot find the words. I asked because I love you, and the bond of marriage is supposed to be a way to show, and to share, that love. And, I." He had to suck in air, steel himself. "I would that my name were yours, that you would include me in your family. I would like the chance to be father to the children you bear."

"Those are good reasons," she agreed.

"I sense a 'but'," he rumbled in return. The 'but' had his stomach clenching.

She smiled. "No 'but'. I will tell you why."

Dórainn nodded, watching her face carefully. The tension was not gone, not entirely, but there was a wary sort of joy building itself up within him.

"I wouldn't marry you, if it were just for our children—I suspected they grew within me, but I hadn't yet confirmed it, nor realized there were two. Nor for simple desire, physical or mental. The years between us mean little—mages do not age as quickly as the rest of us, so the twenty-three years only even us out, do they not? And I'm not nearly as social as you and I both once though I was. Court's taught me that I need the silence just as much as you.

"I'm not marrying you because you can provide a safe haven for me, or monetary support—I'm capable of making my own way."

"I've never thought differently, love," he murmured.

"I'm not marrying you because you need a keeper—though you do, or that without me, you'd become even more of a curmudgeon—though you will. I'm going to marry you because I love you, and because you love me back. Our children will know both of their parents."

The mage's smile bloomed slowly, but brightly and completely. It lightened his eyes to purest silver, and made harsh features even more striking. "You will not regret it, Rapunzel," he whispered, drawing her against him.

"No," she replied, lifting her arms to wrap them around his neck. "I know I won't."


	37. Epilogue

Spring was upon the Deibh Pigeán Mountains once again, with its promise of warmth, of relief from the bitter winds, of life. The snows had finally receded past Staireán Sruth a mere sennight ago. Green was pushing up, the hardy grass, and the hardier wildflowers. His garden was coming back nicely, Dórainn thought, stepping through it, avoiding the tiny curls of his sprouts with deft, practiced ease. At dawn, the chill of winter still clung beneath the branches of the trees, along with the tendrils of fog. But the chill was easily ignored, and if he got uncomfortable, he had stirred the main fire in his cottage before emerging from it.

His stride was brisk as he walked to the barn, and he was greeted with the usual sounds and smells of the horses. Muir's head appeared over his stall door, a quiet wicker of greeting. The mare, pragmatic as always, now called Sìne, whuffled at the bucket that would contain her feed, as soon as he gave it to her. Dórainn chuckled, and walked into the room where he kept the grain, passing the newly added third stall. A yearling, with the looks of his sire and the impertinence of his mother stuck his nose out, and snorted, ears flicking back and forth. The children called him Foolish, and Foolish he was.

A few handfuls for each, and then he put them out, to scrounge what grass they could. The two older horses went with dignity, while Foolish kicked up his heels with a squeal, and cantered around the field twice before dropping his head to the new grass.

Tam emerged from the woods laughing at the young horse's antics. Tall now, at fifteen, and growing still, he was level with Dórainn's shoulder, and came every day for lessons. He was well on his way to becoming a very good healer, the mage was pleased to admit to himself, and a good man too. A son that a father could be proud of—he didn't doubt that the boy's true father would have been pleased, and Iain, who had married Effie shortly after the twins' birth, loved the boy like his own, and couldn't be prouder.

"Come, Tam, we'll have a cup of tea before we start." The offer was habitual, begun while the twins were teething, and neither the mage nor his wife were sleeping more than two hours any given night and the caffeine within the tea was a necessity. By dawn, Tam had been a welcome sight, with his mother's advice on his tongue.

Iona wandered out of the second bedroom, trailing the doll modeled after Cináed she favored above all. "Da?"

"Yes,  _gràdhag_ , what is it? You are up very early." The mage set the kettle aside, and went to lift his daughter. She tucked her head sleepily into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, still clutching the dragon doll.

"When're Unc' Caoin an' Unc' Cal gonna get here wiff the baby?"

He smiled against her dark hair, and returned to the table, settling her in his lap before answering. "Later today, dearheart. They have to go slowly, so that the baby doesn't get tired."

Tam grinned at him from across the table—there was nothing he liked more than to watch his reticent, stern-faced master interact with his four-year-old children, and to see the transformation from terrifying Demon Mage into adoring father, wrapped around two tiny pinkies.

"An' Grandda Roc? Is he coming?"

"Yes, I believe Roarke is coming too. And Cináed. Where is your brother, little love?" he asked, shooting his student a repressive glare over Iona's dark little head. As though in answer to the question, Seòsaidh wandered from the twin's bedroom as well, making a beeline for father and sister, and clambering up on Dórainn's lap, to snuggle silently against his other shoulder, still far more asleep than the girl.

Physically, the twins looked very nearly identical—dark, fine hair grew in a mop on both heads, and eyes that could be blue one day and grey the next matched. No doubt as they matured, their faces would change, refine into masculine and feminine forms of each other, but now there was only the androgynous softness of childhood that rendered them near doubles.

She, however, was very much like her mother in spirit, as bright and social as a robin, while Seòsaidh tended to remain quiet, and hang back. Far be it, though, for his son to act as the voice of reason; the boy was wickedly clever and had a taste for pranks that worried and amused his father, and made Rapunzel laugh aloud.

"Tam, kindly remove the imbecilic expression from your face," Dórainn directed, as icily polite as a sphinx. The youth's face obediently smoothed, though green eyes continued to twinkle. "Bah," the mage muttered, settling the twins more comfortably. "I don't know why I put up with you."

"'Cause Ah'm yer best student?"

" _Only_  student, lad."

Tam only grinned at him again.

"You can be replaced," Dórainn growled, as his wife emerged from their bedroom, dressed, but barefoot and loose-haired.

"Are you threatening Tam again?" She padded over, as slim and lovely as ever, and bent to kiss him.

"'e'll never get rid o' me, ma'am. Doesna want tae break in a new 'pprentice," Tam confided, grinning up at her.

"Cheeky brat," was the mage's only comment, and shifted so Rapunzel could lift Seòsaidh away. "He followed Iona out," he added, standing with his sleeping daughter. "They should sleep another few hours, now that she's been assured that sufficient numbers of her adoring slaves are coming to your party."

Tam watched as the mage and his pretty wife returned their children to the second bedroom, not bothering to stifle a smile at the four of them. They were, as his mother put it, quite a picture. It seemed incredible to him, the changes the past five years had wrought in his master: his smiles remained few, but they reached his eyes, and he laughed—a miracle, it seemed. He bantered with increasing ease, allowed those he called friend to tease him without growing stiff and icy, or quietly sad. No more was the silent, unhappy man with eyes that could break a heart, if they didn't freeze it first to the quick.

"We have a few hours before Caoin and Callán get here. Fractures—what would you do for a broken tibia?" The mage returned, dropping back into his seat.

"Tha's the bone in the lower leg."

Dórainn only raised an eyebrow.

"Err, one o' the bones. The other's the, uhm, radius—nay, the fibula. 'tis the tibia an' the fibula," he confirmed to himself. "Uh, wot kind of fracture? Greenstick? Compound?"

"Greenstick for right now."

"Ye, um, 'ave tae realign the bone, so tha' 't meshes again. An' then—"

"Bloody hell," the mage said, shooting to his feet again, and cutting his student off. With two strides, he'd crossed the room and flung open the door, power abruptly crackling the air around him. Tam scrambled to his feet as well, as Rapunzel hurried out of the twins' room, alarmed by the sudden increase in magic on the air.

"What's the matter?" she demanded, just after Dórainn strode out the door. She and Tam exchanged looks, and headed to the door, not leaving the safety of the house, but where both could see.

"Naow, naow, laddy, ye wouldna blast yer mage-master, would ye?" the red-haired mage inquired innocuously, striding up the path. In the trees, white flashed in and out, as Damh followed, and gracefully leapt the fence to join the horses. Foolish reacted, snorting and trotting to place the other two equines between him and the newcomer, while his parents ignored the intruder with great dignity.

"Not if he arrived in the normal fashion, without turning the wards into quivering jelly with his entrance. At the moment, I'm not so sure," Dórainn replied, but the colorless, heatless waves of his energy stopped emanating outward, and he met his master's proffered hand warmly. "It is good to see you, Roarke."

"An' ye, lad. An' there's yer pretty lady," he said, watching as Rapunzel walked towards them, smiling brightly in welcome. They embraced lightly, and he held her at arms-length to better see her. "Ye look verra whell, lass. Ah suppose 'e must be treatin' ye roight—ye glow."

Her smile warmed further, and turned slightly sly. "You're the first I get to tell— _he_ ," she nodded to her husband with a mock glare, "always knows before I can tell him, the infuriating man. You're going to have more godchildren to spoil, Roarke."

"Tha's wonderful! Yer well? 'ow far along are ye?" he asked, grinning widely, as proud as any grandfather.

"I'm fine—it's going just as the twins did, no sickness, no fatigue. I'm about a month along."

"Shall we adjourn, then, to the house?" Dórainn suggested. "I fear Tam is getting a crick in his neck trying to crane his neck out the door."

"Tha' sounds grand, lad."

"Out of curiosity, incidentally, how much gold does Cináed owe you now?" Dórainn dropped slightly behind his wife, walking beside his mage-master, deep voice low.

The red-headed mage contrived to look hurt, but the amused glitter in his eye betrayed him. "Ach, boy-o, d'ye think sae little 'o me, then, tha' ye'd suggest such a thing?"

"It has nothing to do with my thinking little of you—you know full well of your place in my esteem, you may stop fishing for compliments. It's knowledge gained from thirty-some years spent as a convenient wager between the two of you."

"No' sae convenient, 'alf the time, as ye'd wager tae, an' intentionally blow both o' our bets. Yer near as bad as Sorcha, ye impertinent brat—dinna try tae pretend tha' ye've no' profited from our wee bit o' fun."

"Haven't you other apprentices to wager on by now? What about Kian, or Miikail? You are placing money on the heads of your future godchildren, Roarke."

"Nay, lad, only when they'll git 'ere. An' genders."

"And birth-weight, length, magical strength, hair and eye color. Indeed. In any case, how much does Cináed owe you? And don't tell me you've forgotten—I know you know down to the last bronze kenu."

"Ah, whell, Dór—"

"You intend, of course, to present precisely half of your take to your beloved godchildren in the form of one present or another." Silver eyes slid a sharp look at the older man.

"Ye do ken roight where tae 'it a man—Aye, aye, 'twill go tae 'em," he agreed, feeling the prick of the glance.

"Your obvious depth of feeling warms me to the core," the younger mage drawled, opening the door to his cottage and stepping back that Roarke might proceed him in. "Roarke, you and Tam have met before."

"Aye, tha' we 'ave. 'Ow are ye, lad?"

"Whell, sir, thank ye. An' ye, sir?"

"As whell as kin be expected, Ah suppose. Wot's 'e been teachin' ye, then?"

Leaving them to talk, Dórainn went to his wife, placing strong, slim hands on her hips and drawing her close. "I apologize for the scare, love."

She laughed, tilting up her face for a kiss. "It's good that your mage-master could come."

"He wouldn't have missed it for the world. He adores children, and especially those two."

"And he adores you, Dórainn," she added.

"I know, dearheart," he assured, brushing her hair away from her cheeks and cupping her face before quieting her with a kiss. He was frowning when they broke apart. "Gods, they're here early."

A moment later, Caoin's voice announced their presence.

"And the annual invasion begins," Dórainn intoned, and allowed Rapunzel to drag him out to greet the Heir and his Consort. The baby, a healthy boy recently Named after Callán's father, was brought inside and dandled, his parents offered tea. Within minutes of their arrival, the twins were again awake, adding to the growing pandemonium. The Gypsies wouldn't be far behind, Dórainn knew; they had made Staireán Sruth their summer camp for five years now, just as this reunion Rapunzel insisted on hosting had become yearly.

He smiled, watching them—who knew that so much could change in five years? He knew where the credit lay; directly at the feet of the beautiful lady he called wife. She looked up; from across the room, as though she had felt his gaze, and smiled at him in return.

Dórainn chuckled, and scooped up his son, walking to where his wife stood, their daughter chatting animatedly on Roarke's lap.

Spring was in the Deibh Pigeán Mountains once again, and the gods were smiling.


End file.
